wash-ball

Syllables: wash·ballUK/ˈwɒʃˌbɔːl/US/ˈwɔʃˌbɔl/

wash-ball noun: a ball or cake of substance used for bathing or personal cleansing, or to produce a lather for shaving; a ball of soap.

Noun

wash-ball (plural wash-balls)

(archaic) A ball or cake of substance used for bathing or personal cleansing, or to produce a lather for shaving; a ball of soap.
- Magmata, um. The dregs of ointment, waſh-balls.1662, Christopher Wase, Dictionarium minus: A Compendious Dictionary English–Latin & Latin–English, London: Da. Maxwell, →OCLC, page [542]
- My Husband is a Barbar / His Washbals are admir'd, / And I have got a Bason. / Where he Ladders whilst he's tyr'd: / Thus a Youthful Bedfellow vigorous and strong, / Has made an old Woman grow young.1693, Age Renewed by Wedlock;Pepys Ballads; 5.159], London: J. W., archived from the original on 07 Oct 2015

[…] I don't trouble myself with clothes, linen, and other useless baggage; but resolving to have nothing superfluous, fill my knapsack with belly-timber, my razors, and a wash-ball.1749, Tobias Smollett, translating Alain-René Lesage, Gil Blas, volume I, London: Thomas M'Lean [et al.], 1819, OCLC 697631796, page 163
He ſaid, he was like a waſh-ball, always in decay.1755, Jonathan Swift, “Thoughts on Various Subjects”, in The Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, volume VI, part...
A Waſh-ball, an excellent Coſmetic for the Face and Hands.1784, Pierre-Joseph Buc'hoz, The Toilet of Flora, London: J[ohn] Murray, W. Nicoll, →OCLC, pages 202–203:
To make Red, Light, or Purple Waſh-Balls.1784, Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy, London: W. Strahan [et al.], page 399:

From wash + ball.

What does wash-ball mean?: Wash-ball means a ball or cake of substance used for bathing or personal cleansing, or to produce a lather for shaving; a ball of soap.
How do you use wash-ball in a sentence?: […] I don't trouble myself with clothes, linen, and other useless baggage; but resolving to have nothing superfluous, fill my knapsack with belly-timber, my razors, and a wash-ball.
What part of speech is wash-ball?: Wash-ball is a noun.
How do you pronounce wash-ball?: Wash-ball is pronounced /ˈwɒʃˌbɔːl/ (UK).
What is the plural of wash-ball?: The plural of wash-ball is wash-balls.

Adapted from Wiktionary: wash-ball (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-wash-ball.ogg.

Cite this entry: “wash-ball.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wash-ball. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.