different between wash vs babble

English

Etymology

From Middle English washen, waschen, weschen, from Old English wascan, from Proto-Germanic *waskan?, *watskan? (“to wash, get wet”), from Proto-Indo-European *wed- (“wet; water”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian waaske (“to wash”), West Frisian waskje (“to wash”), Dutch wassen, wasschen (“to wash”), Low German waschen (“to wash”), German waschen (“to wash”), Danish vaske (“to wash”), Norwegian Bokmål vaske (“to wash”), Swedish vaska (“to wash”), Icelandic vaska (“to wash”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /w??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /w??/, /w??/
• (Canada, NYC, cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /w??/
• (US, intrusive r) IPA^(key): /w???/
• Rhymes: -??
• Rhymes: -??(?)?

Verb

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

1. To clean with water.
   • 1917, Lester Angell Round, Harold Locke Lang, Preservation of vegetables by fermentation and salting, page 9

     Wash the vegetables, drain off the surplus water, and pack them in a keg, crock, or other utensil until it is nearly full

   • 1971, Homemaking Handbook: For Village Workers in Many Countries, page 101

     If using celery or okra, wash the vegetables in safe water.

   • 2010, Catherine Abbott, The Everything Grow Your Own Vegetables Book: Your Complete Guide to planting, tending, and harvesting vegetables, Everything Books ?ISBN, page 215

     Wash the vegetables thoroughly; even a little dirt can contain bacteria. Wash vegetables individually under running water.

2. (transitive) To move or erode by the force of water in motion.

3. (mining) To separate valuable material (such as gold) from worthless material by the action of flowing water.
4. (intransitive) To clean oneself with water.

5. (transitive) To cover with water or any liquid; to wet; to fall on and moisten.
   • [the landscape] washed with a cold, grey mist

6. (intransitive) To move with a lapping or swashing sound; to lap or splash.

7. (intransitive) To be eroded or carried away by the action of water.
8. (intransitive, figuratively) To be cogent, convincing; to withstand critique.
   • 2012, The Economist, Oct 13th 2012 issue, The Jordan and its king: As beleaguered as ever

     The king is running out of ideas as well as cash. His favourite shock-absorbing tactic—to blame his governments and sack his prime ministers—hardly washes.

9. (intransitive) To bear without injury the operation of being washed.

10. (intransitive) To be wasted or worn away by the action of water, as by a running or overflowing stream, or by the dashing of the sea; said of road, a beach, etc.
11. To cover with a thin or watery coat of colour; to tint lightly and thinly.
12. To overlay with a thin coat of metal.

13. (transitive) To cause dephosphorization of (molten pig iron) by adding substances containing iron oxide, and sometimes manganese oxide.
14. (transitive) To pass (a gas or gaseous mixture) through or over a liquid for the purpose of purifying it, especially by removing soluble constituents.

Usage notes

In older works and possibly still in some dialects, wesh and woosh may be found as past tense forms. Washen may be found as a past participle.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

wash (plural washes)

1. The process or an instance of washing or being washed by water or other liquid.

2. A liquid used for washing.
3. A lotion or other liquid with medicinal or hygienic properties.

4. The quantity of clothes washed at a time.

5. (art) A smooth and translucent painting created using a paintbrush holding a large amount of solvent and a small amount of paint.
6. The sound of breaking of the seas, e.g., on the shore.
   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 16, [1]

     […] the wind in the cordage and the wash of the sea helped the more to put them beyond earshot […]

7. The bow wave, wake, or vortex of an object moving in a fluid, in particular:
   1. The bow wave or wake of a moving ship, or the vortex from its screws.
      • 2003, Guidelines for Managing Wake Wash from High-speed Vessels: Report of Working Group 41 of the Maritime Navigation Commission, PIANC ?ISBN, page 5

        To date, much of the research undertaken on high-speed vessel wake wash has appeared only as unpublished reports for various authorities and management agencies.

   2. The turbulence left in the air by a moving airplane.
   3. The backward current or disturbed water caused by the action of oars, or of a steamer's screw or paddles, etc.
8. (nautical) The blade of an oar.
9. Ground washed away to the sea or a river.

   • The wash of pastures, fields, commons, and roads, […] where rain water hath a long time settled.

10. A piece of ground washed by the action of water, or sometimes covered and sometimes left dry; the shallowest part of a river, or arm of the sea; also, a bog; a marsh.
11. A shallow body of water.
13. In arid and semi-arid regions, the normally dry bed of an intermittent or ephemeral stream; an arroyo or wadi.
    • 1997, Stanley Desmond Smith, et al. Physiological Ecology of North American Desert Plants, Nature

      In some desert-wash systems (which have been termed “xero-riparian”)

    • 1999, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert

      ...though the wash may carry surface water for only a few hours a year.
14. A situation in which losses and gains or advantages and disadvantages are equivalent; a situation in which there is no net change.
15. (finance, slang) A fictitious kind of sale of stock or other securities between parties of one interest, or by a broker who is both buyer and seller, and who minds his own interest rather than that of his clients.
16. Waste liquid, the refuse of food, the collection from washed dishes, etc., from a kitchen, often used as food for pigs; pigwash.
17. In distilling, the fermented wort before the spirit is extracted.
18. A mixture of dunder, molasses, water, and scummings, used in the West Indies for distillation.
    • 1793, Bryan Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies

      In order to augment the vinosity of the wash, many substances are recommended by Dr. Shaw, such as tartar, nitre, common salt, and the vegetable or mineral acids.

19. A thin coat of paint or metal laid on anything for beauty or preservation.
20. Ten strikes, or bushels, of oysters.
21. (architecture) The upper surface of a member or material when given a slope to shed water; hence, a structure or receptacle shaped so as to receive and carry off water.

22. (television) A lighting effect that fills a scene with a chosen colour.
23. (stagecraft) A lighting fixture that can cast a wide beam of light to evenly fill an area with light, as opposed to a spotlight.

Synonyms

• lavatory

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene)

Anagrams

• Haws, Shaw, Wahs, haws, shaw, shwa, wahs

English

Etymology

From Middle English babelen, from Old English *bæblian, also wæflian (“to talk foolishly”), from Proto-Germanic *babal?n? (“to chatter”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?a-b?a-, perhaps a reduplication of Proto-Indo-European *b?eh?- (“to say”), or a variant of Proto-Indo-European *baba- (“to talk vaguely, mumble”), or a merger of the two, possibly ultimately onomatopoetic/mimicry of infantile sounds. Cognate with Old Frisian babbelje (“to babble”), Old Norse babbla (“to babble”) (Swedish babbla), Middle Low German babbelen (“to babble”), Dutch babbelen (“to babble, chat”), German pappeln and babbeln (“to babble”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bæb.l?/
• Rhymes: -æb?l

Verb

babble (third-person singular simple present babbles, present participle babbling, simple past and past participle babbled)

1. (intransitive) To utter words indistinctly or unintelligibly; to utter inarticulate sounds

2. (intransitive) To talk incoherently; to utter meaningless words.
3. (intransitive) To talk too much; to chatter; to prattle.
4. (intransitive) To make a continuous murmuring noise, like shallow water running over stones.
   • 1815, William Wordsworth, Extracts from Descriptive Sketches

     In every babbling brook he finds a friend.

5. (transitive) To utter in an indistinct or incoherent way; to repeat words or sounds in a childish way without understanding.
   • 1712, John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull

     These [words] he used to babble indifferently in all companies.

6. (transitive) To reveal; to give away (a secret).

Translations

Noun

babble (usually uncountable, plural babbles)

1. Idle talk; senseless prattle

   Synonyms: gabble, twaddle

   • 1634, John Milton, Comus, a Mask, line 823:

     This is mere moral babble.

2. Inarticulate speech; constant or confused murmur.
   • 1871, Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

     The babble of our young children.

3. A sound like that of water gently flowing around obstructions.
   • ?, Alfred Tennyson, Mariana

     The babble of the stream.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:chatter

Hyponyms

Translations

See also

• babblement
• babblery

References

• babble in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

German

Verb

babble

1. inflection of babbeln:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. first/third-person singular subjunctive I
   3. singular imperative