Word.ws English Dictionary

wish-washing

wish-washing is the present participle and gerund of wish-wash.

Meaning of wish-wash

Verb

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

  1. 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
  2. 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

See all 7 meanings of wish-wash

Questions about wish-washing

What is wish-washing the present participle and gerund of?
Wish-washing is the present participle and gerund of wish-wash.

Words near wish-washing in the dictionary

  1. wish-cycling
  2. wish-fulfilling
  3. wish-wash
  4. wish-washed
  5. wish-washes
  6. wish-washing
  7. Wish.com
  8. wisha
  9. wishable
  10. wishalloy
  11. Wisham

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wish-washing (page history and authors); wish-wash (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: “wish-washing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wish-washing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.