lave
/leɪv
/verb [with object] literary
1Wash: she ran cold water in the basin, laving her face and hands...
- As one laved one's chest one could conjure up images of bowler hats on the coat rack, well-thumbed Police Gazettes, shoe polish and cigars.
1.1(Of water) wash against or over (something): the sea below laved the shore with small, agitated waves...
- But in Salzburg, a land laved by mists and mountain air, all the star-power in the world fades away before the glory of Mozart, its most illustrious son.
- He passes the time by visiting bathhouses, where he writhes in licentious congress soapy enough to lave his sins and conceal the nether regions forbade by Japanese censorship.
- Took Nat to the beach, and as we approached the shore I caught the Most Holy Whiff, the perfume of fish and weeds and sun-laved water.
Derivatives
lavation
- And with a great deal of commotion, we did all our lavations.
- Truthfully, any hamster I have, or don't have, will remain pretty stinky if his lavations are left to me.
- Then Henry goes home, I have dinner and begin my lavations to relax before completing my homework.
Origin
Old English lafian, from Latin lavare 'to wash'; reinforced in Middle English by Old French laver.
Rhymes
- radio altimeter
- radio amateur
- radioanalysis
- radioassay
- radio astronomer
- radio-astronomical
- radio astronomy
- radio-atom
- radioautograph
- radioautographic
- radioautography
- radiobe
- radiobiologic
- radiobiological
- radiobiologically
- radiobiologist
- radiobiology
- radiobismuth
- radio-bright
- radio brightness
- radiobromination
- radio burst
- radio button
- radio car
- radiocarbon