shower bathn.
/ˈʃaʊə bɑːθ/, /ˈʃaʊə baθ/, U.S. /ˈʃaʊ(ə)r ˌbæθ/ 1.
a. An apparatus for producing a spray of water under which a person may wash his or her body; a cubicle containing such apparatus. Now largely superseded by shower (see shower n.1 16a, 16b).Shower baths originally consisted of a pump which forced water into a basin above the head, fitted with a chain or string to release the water. Later kinds included hand-held showers and plumbed wall-mounted showers.
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the world > physical sensation > cleanness and dirtiness > cleaning > washing > washing oneself or body > [noun] > bathing > a bath > shower-bath > apparatus
shower bath1778
shower1820
showerhead1865
shower curtain1904
shower unit1908
stall shower1939
1778 Morning Post 24 Dec. A Shower Bath, that will gently discharge twelve gallons of water over the head, nearly answering the intent of bathing.
1815 tr. Duc de Lévis Eng. at Beginning 19th Cent. 211 They have invented a machine..which is now very much in use; it is called a shower-bath. It is like a sentry-box.
1859 F. S. Cooper Ironmongers' Catal. 3 Hand Shower Baths.
1878 7th Abstr. Rep. Superintendents Poor Michigan 1877 56 Facilities for bathing are two bath-rooms, with bath-tubs and a shower-bath.
1927 Waterloo (Iowa) Evening Courier 4 Mar. 4/1 You can put in a shower bath over the tub without much extra expense.
2009 K. M. Brown Foul Bodies iii. 206 By the last two decades of the eighteenth century, shower baths and bathtubs had begun to appear in a handful of elite homes.
b. to pull the string of the shower bath and variants: (a) to set a series of events in motion, esp. suddenly or unexpectedly; (b) to cause something concealed to be suddenly revealed. Now rare.
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society > communication > manifestation > disclosure or revelation > disclose or make revelations [verb (intransitive)] > suddenly
to pull the string of the shower bath1837
1837 Essex Standard 16 June When he made the proposition that the company should be entertained with a song, he was not aware that he was pulling the leading string of a shower bath, that was to pour down so heavily upon his own head.
1887 O. W. Holmes 100 Days Europe i. 36 Our arrival pulled the string of the social shower-bath, and the invitations began pouring down upon us.
1928 R. Kipling Limits & Renewals (1932) 20 If I pull the string of the shower-bath in the papers..Castorley might go off his veray parfit gentil nut.
1928 F. M. Ford Last Post iv. 104 Sylvia delighted most in doing what she called pulling the strings of shower-baths. She did extravagant things..for the fun of seeing what would happen.
1937 V. Woolf Years 441 Why can't he flow? Why can't he pull the string of the shower bath? Why's it all locked up, refrigerated? Because he's a priest, a mystery monger.
2.
a. An act of washing the body under a spray of water; = shower n.1 17.
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the world > physical sensation > cleanness and dirtiness > cleaning > washing > washing oneself or body > [noun] > bathing > a bath > shower-bath
shower bath1779
needle-bath1887
needle-shower1906
shower1907
1779 Med. & Philos. Comm. 6 i. 66 He considers the effects of sudden immersion, of affusion or the shower bath, and of merely washing the surface.
1853 A. R. Wallace Amazon & Rio Negro 30 In the morning, after a refreshing shower-bath under the mill-feeder, we shouldered our guns [etc.].
1899 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. VIII. 380 Shower baths in the young, when they can be borne, are most efficacious.
1948 Rotarian Mar. 37/1 Many a person taking a shower bath has found too late that the..water has flooded the floor.
1995 Daily Mail (Nexis) 9 Dec. 74 Drag the little monsters out of their sociology lessons and pitch them into battle on a soggy winter playing field with a tepid showerbath to follow.
b. spec. (chiefly U.S.). A form of punishment in which a person is bound or restrained and showered with copious amounts of cold water. Now historical.
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1812 B. Rush Med. Inq. & Observ. Dis. Mind vii. 182 1. Confinement by means of a strait waistcoat... 4. The shower bath, continued for fifteen or twenty minutes. If all these modes of punishment should fail of their intended effects [etc.].
1839 14th Ann. Rep. Boston Prison Discipline Soc. 97 The shower-bath is the principal punishment, and for minor offences the prisoner is deprived of certain meals, or rations.
1868 B. J. Lossing Hudson (new ed.) 303 Severe punishments are becoming more and more rare, and the terrible Shower Bath..is now seldom used.
1984 M. C. Glenn Campaigns against Corporal Punishm. vii. 132 Clinton State Prison, which opened in 1845, usually punished convicts with the whip, dungeon, shower bath, or head shavings.
2008 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 18 Jan. a12/1 Floggings..were standard punishment, along with ‘shower baths’—a precursor of water-boarding.
3. In extended use and figurative: a stream or spray of water; an outpouring or torrent of praise, abuse, etc.; something which provides or results in this.
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the world > matter > liquid > liquid which has been emitted > action or process of emitting copiously > [noun] > sudden
shower bath1808
outgush1835
the world > action or operation > manner of action > violent action or operation > [noun] > bursting violently from rest or restraint > instance of > violent surge of something > specifically of words or feeling
spatec1614
sally1676
torrent1702
shower bath1808
simoom1813
irruption1883
1808 J. Sedgwick Hints Evangelical Preaching: Pt. I 124 Whoever does not subscribe to them, must expect a plentiful sprinkling of abuse from the shower-bath of Calvinism.
1823 W. Scott St. Ronan's Well I. iv. 93 He was soused with a deluge of water... [A threat] induced him to retreat in all haste from the repetition of this shower-bath.
1889 A. C. Swinburne Study of Jonson 25 The character of Captain Pantilius Tucca, which seems to have brought down on its creator such a boiling shower-bath or torrent of professional indignation.
1929 Evening News 18 Nov. 16/4 Passengers in the tramcar received a showerbath from the contents of the gulley-emptier, which poured into the tramcar.
2005 S. Heti Ticknor 88 There was to be none of the shower-bath of silly hopes and encouragements so commonly heard by the ailing.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2017; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1778