wish-wash

wish-wash noun: any weak, thin drink.

Noun

wish-wash (countable and uncountable, plural wish-washes)

(archaic) Any weak, thin drink.
- Between the result of the above, and the ordinary wish-wash served as coffee, the difference is too great to be expressed.1926, May Byron, May Clarissa Gillington Byron, Pot-luck, page 395
- The famous bohemian cafés, the Dôme, the Coupole and the Rotonde, still remained; the hooded iron stove still warmed the regulars settled beside the round tables from the wintry streets; the waiter, with the unvarying rudeness of Paris, served the "national coffee," that grayish-brown wish-wash...2000, Sándor Márai, Memoir of Hungary: 1944-1948, page 270
Talk, music, or art, or ideas that lack any value, substance, originality, or meaning; dreck.
- It is a thing that fails altogether to interest; a wish-wash that only serves to pass the time.1866, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Letters to Leipzig Friends, page 121
- They confined their sermons on Sunday to the decorous wish-wash in which average men treated in a harmless way subjects to which the people were indifferent.1900 June, “The Old Gentleman”, in The Social Gospel, number 29, page 13
The sound of liquid sloshing
- Martha steadily turned and turned, and the cream within the snowy white sycamore box went 'wish-wash, wish-wash, wish-wash, playing, after all, a very delicious tune in the young farmer's ears, for it suggested yellow butter, and yellow butter suggested sovereigns, and sovereigns suggested home...1883 November 17, George Manville Fenn, “The Rosery Folk”, in Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts, volume 20, number 1038, page 726
- Then in the morning the washing of the deck; rush comes an engine pipe on the floor–ceases, is renewed, flourishes about, rushes again; then suddenly half a dozen brooms, wish-wash, wish-wash, scrib-scrub, scratching and roaring alternately.2012, Michael Robinson, Newman's Quest for the One True Church, page A-55

Adjective

wish-wash (comparative more wish-wash, superlative most wish-wash)

Vapid; lackluster; mediocre
- Of course we fear to address ourselves to those gentlemen whose reading is limited to the daily newspaper and novels of the wish-wash order.1883 May, John Wells Thatcher, “Fair Criticism”, in On the road, volume 1, number 1, page 4
- To suit a degraded English taste, foreigners like the late Mr. Lŏhr, had to write down to the level of the wish-wash drawing-room ballad.1895, Sabine Baring-Gould, A Garland of Country Song, page x
Unfocussed, meandering or impulsive
- While you are sitting by the side of the placid Thames, under shades of your own planting, planning the operations of a next winter's campaign, we are in the wish-wash way at Margate, amidst deep caverns, high cliffs, and expanded waters, enjoying the less calm, but more sublime objects of Nature.1832, David Garrick, James Boaden, The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, page 349
- Be nothing, do nothing, say nothing, and the world will let you slip into eternity damned by your own wish-wash, willy-nilly life.1915, “The Glory of Achievement”, in The Retail Druggist, volume 22, page 25

Verb

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

To slosh around.
- And that night, with the stars jumping and the air lating cold (for we were up in the 40's), and the John wish-washing through the seas at three leagues the hour, MacMuir told me the story of Mungo Maxwell.1908, Great Thoughts from Master Minds, page 186
- A little scalloped cove where weedy creatures Trail in and out, wish-washing on the tide .1910, Florence Converse, A Masque of Sibyls, page 31
To behave in a wishy-washy manner, to vacillate
- Hain't been a fair election in 15 years to my knowing, and I am confident about what I am talking about, but I am getting sick and tired of this wish-washing about eating tickets; have known them to do this after election.1921, United States. Congress. House, Contested-election Case of James I. Campbell V. Robert L. Doughton, page 644
- With his eyes glued on the fall elections, President Truman is wish-washing this country into certain war with Russia .1950, United States. Congress, Congressional Record, page A-248

wish-wash meaning in Tamil

wish-wash in Tamil

மெலிவு, சாரமின்மை

Examples of wish-wash in a sentence

They got 250 grams of bread and wish-wash for breakfast; in the evening, he who had worked got kasha, wish-wash, and bread.2014, Paul R. Josephson, The Conquest of the Russian Arctic, page 135:
It consisted of bread and for the first course "the usual wish-wash” (balanda), “so-called soup in which several pieces of congealed cabbage floated.”2017, Larry E. Holmes, Stalin's World War II Evacuations: Triumph and Troubles in Kirov, page 77:
it is a clearing away of the wish-wash which assumes that lack of national distinction is an international virtue.1976, Laurie Thomas, Laurie F. Thomas, The Most Noble Art of Them All, page 65:
What I am doing is asking the senator to explain why Labor has come up with such wish-wash on this matter.2000, Australia. Parliament. Senate, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard).: Senate, page 20486:

Forms of wish-wash

Noun
plural	wish-washes
Adjective
comparative	more wish-wash
superlative	most wish-wash
Verb
third-person singular present	wish-washes
present participle	wish-washing
past participle	wish-washed
past	wish-washed

Questions about wish-wash

What does wish-wash mean?: Wish-wash means any weak, thin drink.
What is wish-wash in Tamil?: Wish-wash in Tamil is மெலிவு, சாரமின்மை. See Wish-wash meaning in Tamil.
How do you use wish-wash in a sentence?: They got 250 grams of bread and wish-wash for breakfast; in the evening, he who had worked got kasha, wish-wash, and bread.
What part of speech is wish-wash?: Wish-wash can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
What is the plural of wish-wash?: The plural of wish-wash is wish-washes.

Words near wish-wash in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: wish-wash (page history and authors); wish-wash (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-wish-wash.wav.

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