Word.ws English Dictionary

washed up

washed up adjective: well past their prime and no longer successful; having no future in a particular role. Also the simple past and past participle of wash up.

Adjective

washed up (comparative more washed up, superlative most washed up)

  1. (informal) Well past their prime and no longer successful; having no future in a particular role.
    • Pavarotti's washed up as a singer, in my view.
    • It would be difficult, for example, to imagine a bigger, more obvious subject for comedy than the laughable self-delusion of washed-up celebrities, especially if the washed-up celebrity in question is Adam West, a camp icon who can go toe to toe with William Shatner as the king of winking...2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)
    Synonyms:
    washed

Also used as

washed up is also the simple past and past participle of wash up.

Synonyms of washed up

Forms of washed up

comparativemore washed up
superlativemost washed up
alternative formwashed-up

Questions about washed up

What does washed up mean?
Washed up means well past their prime and no longer successful; having no future in a particular role.
What part of speech is washed up?
Washed up is an adjective.

Words near washed up in the dictionary

  1. washed one's mouth out
  2. washed oneself of
  3. washed out
  4. washed out one's mouth
  5. washed over
  6. washed up
  7. washed-out
  8. washed-up
  9. washedst
  10. washee
  11. washees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: washed up (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: “washed up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/washed_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.