Meaning & use
bathe
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Meanings
verbtransitive or intransitive
To wash your body or someone else's, especially by sitting in water.
Grammar: No object when washing yourself (I bathe daily); an object when washing someone else (bathe the baby). British English may use bath instead.
Patterns
- bathe someone
- bathe in something
She bathes the baby every evening before bed.
We bathed in the warm spring after the long hike.
He bathes quickly in the morning and then makes coffee.
verbtransitive
To clean or soothe a part of the body, such as a wound, with liquid.
Grammar: Takes an object: bathe the cut.
Patterns
- bathe something in something
- bathe something with something
The nurse bathed the cut with warm salt water.
Bathe your eyes in cool water if they sting.
She bathed his sore foot in a bowl of ice water.
verbintransitiveBritishold-fashioned
To swim or paddle in the sea, a river or a pool for pleasure.
Grammar: No object; mainly British English: families bathe at the beach.
Patterns
- bathe in something
Visitors bathe in the lake every summer.
The children bathed in the shallow end of the pool.
In the old photo, villagers bathe in the river.
verbtransitivefigurative
To cover something completely with light, sound or a strong feeling.
Grammar: Often passive: be bathed in light.
Patterns
- be bathed in something
- bathe something in something
The room was bathed in soft morning light.
She was bathed in sweat after the climb.
The hills were bathed in gold at sunset.
Word forms
| third person singular | bathes |
|---|---|
| past tense | bathed |
| past participle | bathed |
| -ing form | bathing |
Common combinations
- bathe the baby
- They take turns to bathe the baby.
- bathe in the sea
- Tourists bathe in the sea at dawn.
- bathed in light
- The stage was bathed in blue light.
- bathe a wound
- Bathe the wound with clean water.
- bathed in sweat
- He woke bathed in sweat.
Synonyms and how they differ
- wash
- Wash is the everyday word for cleaning anything, while bathe usually involves immersing the body or treating a body part with water.
- soak
- Soak stresses staying in water for a long time, while bathe is mainly about cleaning or soothing.
- swim
- Swim requires moving through water; bathe, in the British sense, can mean just paddling or enjoying the water.
- flood
- Flood, in the figurative sense, suggests overwhelming amounts of light, while bathe gives a softer, gentler picture.
Word family
Commonly confused: bathe or bath? bathe or bayed?
bathe vs bath
Bath is a noun (take a bath) and has a short th sound. Bathe is the verb and has a voiced th and a long a, as in beɪð.
bathe vs bayed
Bayed sounds like beɪd and means barked or howled, so do not confuse it with bathed.
Practice
The valley looked beautiful, ___ in golden evening light.
Choose one answer.
Bathed in light is the passive participle form meaning covered with light. Bathing would imply the valley is doing the bathing, and bath or bathe do not fit grammatically.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “bathe”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.