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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

-wash en · X

Etymology

Back-formation from whitewash. Second sense popularised by greenwash.

Meanings

  1. (morpheme) To coat with, or a coating of, paint of the colour specified.
    • The natives dig clay from both places, in order to paint or rather redwash the walls of their huts. 1930, Francis Hamilton, Journal of Francis Buchanan Kept During the Survey of the District of Bhagalpur in 1810-1811:
    • The only touch of color was provided by a small copy Leonardo's Last Supper and three crudely painted windows, executed in a kind of bluewash and orangewash, over the altar. 2021, Roger H. Guichard, Middle East Tapestry, Wipf and Stock Publishers, →ISBN, page 266:
    • At present, successive coats of yellowwash fill up the rich decoration of this doorway, so that its beauty is not brought out to the eye of the unpractised visitor. 1848, Joshua Fawcett, Church rides in the neighbourhood of Scarborough, Yorkshire, page 22:
  2. (morpheme) To focus on, or an act of focussing on, a supposedly positive aspect of an organisation in order to distract from or downplay negative perceptions.
    • One might argue that more is at stake than hiring multiracial, female, and lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) employees to rainbowwash corporate agendas. 2014, Bruce Burgett, Glenn Hendler, Keywords for American Cultural Studies, Second Edition, NYU Press, →ISBN:
    • They are likely to remain small and relatively marginalized niche markets, even as some of their rhetoric is appropriated by the TNCs for use as marketing gimmicks and bluewash. 2004, John M. Talbot, Grounds for Agreement: The Political Economy of the Coffee Commodity Chain, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, →ISBN, page 210:
    • Spade suggests here, in the same breath, both that the Obama administration uses its "declarations of gay rights" to pinkwash and that its support for gay rights is "used as a rationale for domestic and international regimes of racialized violence and warfare." 2018, Cyril Ghosh, De-Moralizing Gay Rights: Some Queer Remarks on LGBT+ Rights Politics in the US, Springer, →ISBN, page 20:
    • In embracing and promoting their collaborations with WWF, these companies are being encouraged to greenwash their brands with the WWF logo. 2012, Guy Pearse, Greenwash: Big Brands and Carbon Scams, Black Inc., →ISBN:
  3. (informal, morpheme) An overwhelming victory by a team or entity of the colour specified; often a clean sweep.
    • To achieve a bluewash for the first time in a thousand years? Quite the incentive for Brad Fittler’s Baby Blues. 2018 July 11, Dan Liebke, “The Liebke Ratings: State of Origin 3”, in The Roar:
    • So many were delighted when he was unceremoniously turfed from office in the 2015 redwash, with his USDP losing every single seat in the region. 2017 December 28, “Myanmar's newsmakers of 2017”, in Frontier Myanmar:
    • A Maroonwash will be two-thirds complete on a fast track at Suncorp. 2016 June 21, Andrew Webster, Roy Masters, Steve Mascord, Phil Lutton, Brad Walter, with Barrett, Chris, Pengilly, Adam, Proszenko, Adrian, and Chammas, Michael, “State of Origin 2016: Who the experts are tipping in game two”, in The Sydney Morning Herald: