Word.ws English Dictionary

unwashen

unwashen is the obsolete form of unwashed.

Meaning of unwashed

Adjective

unwashed (not comparable)

  1. Not having been washed.
    • I say that the eyass should have her meat unwashed, until she becomes a brancher—’twere the ready way to give her the frounce, to wash her meat sooner, and so knows every one who knows a gled from a falcon.1820, [Walter Scott], chapter IV, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and...
    Synonyms:
    unwashen
  2. Vulgar, plebeian, lowbrow.
    • Gannon is looked upon with distrust by a good many members of the Citizens’ Committee—or perhaps it is with jealousy. He remains, however, a hero to the unwashed elements.1958, Oakley Hall, Warlock

Origin of unwashen

From Middle English unwaschen, from Old English unwæsċen (“not washed”), equivalent to un- + washen.

Words formed from unwashen

Questions about unwashen

What is unwashen the obsolete form of?
Unwashen is the obsolete form of unwashed.

Words near unwashen in the dictionary

  1. unwashable
  2. unwashables
  3. unwashed
  4. unwashed masses
  5. unwashedness
  6. unwashen
  7. unwashenness
  8. unwasht
  9. unwastable
  10. unwaste
  11. unwasteable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unwashen (page history and authors); unwashed (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: “unwashen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unwashen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.