Word.ws English Dictionary

washing one's hands

washing one's hands is the present participle and gerund of wash one's hands.

Meaning of wash one's hands

Verb

wash one's hands (third-person singular simple present washes one's hands, present participle washing one's hands, simple past and past participle washed one's hands)

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see wash, one's, hands.
    • Be sure to wash your hands before preparing food.
  2. (euphemistic) To go to the toilet.
  3. (figuratively) To absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for; to refuse to have any further involvement with.
    • Sharp[er]. […] Mony is but Dirt, Sir Joſeph—Mere Dirt. / Sir Jo[seph Wittoll]. But I profeſs, it is a Dirt I have vvaſhed my Hands of at preſent; I have laid it all out upon my Back.1693, Will[iam] Congreve, The Old Batchelour, a Comedy. […], London: […] Peter Buck, […], →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 11
    Synonyms:
    disclaim, disown, abjure, deny, disavow, forsay, forswear, renounce, repudiate, wash one's hands of

Questions about washing one's hands

What is washing one's hands the present participle and gerund of?
Washing one's hands is the present participle and gerund of wash one's hands.

Words near washing one's hands in the dictionary

  1. washing off
  2. washing one's brain out with soap
  3. washing one's dirty laundry in public
  4. washing one's dirty linen in public
  5. washing one's elbows
  6. washing one's hands
  7. washing one's hands of
  8. washing one's mouth out
  9. washing oneself of
  10. washing out
  11. washing out one's mouth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: washing one's hands (page history and authors); wash one's hands (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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