Word.ws English Dictionary

throw the baby out with the bath water

throw the baby out with the bath water is the alternative form of throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Meaning of throw the baby out with the bathwater

Verb

throw the baby out with the bathwater (third-person singular simple present throws the baby out with the bathwater, present participle throwing the baby out with the bathwater, simple past threw the baby out with the bathwater, past participle thrown the baby out with the bathwater)

  1. (idiomatic) To discard, inadvertently or through overzealousness, something valuable or essential ("the baby") in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted or undesirable ("the bathwater").
    • They cancelled the entire project because the new management didn't like the prototype, but I think they threw the baby out with the bathwater.

Forms of throw the baby out with the bath water

third-person singular presentthrows the baby out with the bath water
present participlethrowing the baby out with the bath water
pastthrew the baby out with the bath water
past participlethrown the baby out with the bath water

Questions about throw the baby out with the bath water

What is throw the baby out with the bath water the alternative form of?
Throw the baby out with the bath water is the alternative form of throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Words near throw the baby out with the bath water in the dictionary

  1. throw spaghetti against the wall
  2. throw spaghetti at the wall
  3. throw stones
  4. throw stones in a glass house
  5. throw tantrums
  6. throw the baby out with the bath water
  7. throw the baby out with the bathwater
  8. throw the book at
  9. throw the bull
  10. throw the bull around
  11. throw the handkerchief

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: throw the baby out with the bath water (page history and authors); throw the baby out with the bathwater (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “throw the baby out with the bath water.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/throw_the_baby_out_with_the_bath_water. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.