Word.ws English Dictionary

thrown the baby out with the bathwater

thrown the baby out with the bathwater is the past participle 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.

Questions about thrown the baby out with the bathwater

What is thrown the baby out with the bathwater the past participle of?
Thrown the baby out with the bathwater is the past participle of throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Words near thrown the baby out with the bathwater in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thrown the baby out with the bathwater (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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