Word.ws English Dictionary

wash its face

wash its face verb: to pay for itself; to make enough revenue to cover the costs of its production.

Verb

wash its face (third-person singular simple present washes its face, present participle washing its face, simple past and past participle washed its face)

  1. (informal) To pay for itself; to make enough revenue to cover the costs of its production.
    • At a cost of around $130 million, the film needed to take at least $260 worldwide to wash its face at the box-office.2014, Mark Kermode, Hatchet Job: Love Movies, Hate Critics, page 259
    • The Axeman movie had barely washed its face at the box office, and was already expected to suffer a reboot.2017, Tim Walker, Smoke Over Malibu, page 115

Forms of wash its face

third-person singular presentwashes its face
present participlewashing its face
past participlewashed its face
pastwashed its face

Questions about wash its face

What does wash its face mean?
Wash its face means to pay for itself; to make enough revenue to cover the costs of its production.
What part of speech is wash its face?
Wash its face is a verb.
What is the past tense of wash its face?
The past tense of wash its face is washed its face.

Words near wash its face in the dictionary

  1. wash bottle
  2. wash bottles
  3. wash down
  4. wash house
  5. wash houses
  6. wash its face
  7. wash leather
  8. wash leathers
  9. wash line
  10. wash lines
  11. wash machine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wash its face (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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