Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to free oneself of debts by becoming a bankrupt; thus n. whitewasher.

1762		implied in whitewashed adj.
1773		Foote The Bankrupt II ii: Pass’d a few necessary notes to get him number and value, white-wash’d him, and sent him home to his wife.
1781		Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 1-8 Sept. n.p.: White-wash and black-ball is the present Calcutta system.
1800		G. Colman Yngr Heir at Law I ii: A bankruptcy, I warrant; and he is come up to town to whitewash.
1823		[C.M. Westmacott] Mammon in London 1 309: [H]e had just got white-washed and [...] did not care a straw for a creditor’s black looks.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 99: The unthinking dashing sparks whitewash their long accounts for twist, tape, and buckram.
1838		‘Alfred Crowquill’ Seymour’s Humourous Sketches (1866) 21: Ven some people’s husbands is vite-vashed, their purses ain’t less .
1840		Sydney Herald 31 Jan. 2/1: [U]nder the old Insolvent Law [...] the vilest scoundrels in the country ‘whitewashed’ themselves, (as they call it in their blackguard slang); and were cheered by their evil compeers.
1879		London Life 14 June 7/1: ‘Shylock's Scavenger,’ [...] who, after he has shorn him of all the wool he has got, and plucked him of every feather he has to fly with, will whitewash him all over.
1891		Sporting Times 14 Mar. 6/3: Harry Marks’ virtuous indignation on the subjett [sic] of financial whitewashing [...] was a trifle too rich.
1903		Daily Tel. 22 May 7/3: I had not followed the case closely, and did not know that he was an undischarged bankrupt. Mr. White had whitewashed him [F&H].
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 11 Aug. 1/1: Rubbed-out unregistereds decline to mix with the whitewashers.

2. (UK und.) to daub with whitewash a brothel customer who defaulted on payment .

1827

Pierce Egan’s Life in London 25 Mar. 902/2: [I]t was the practice, in those houses, if a gentleman refused to pay the demand made upon him, to dip a brush in. a qantity of whitening and water, and daub his clothes all over with it. It was only a fortnight ago when a gentleman [came] in a shocking pickle, to complain of being white-washed at a Brothel [...] in consequence of having [...] ‘bilked’ one of the girls.

3. (orig. US) to win or defeat decisively.

1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 23 Oct. 14/2: Boh Ferguson is going to whitewash Storey and put him among his collection of Indians.
1909		Van Loan ‘The Cast-Off’ in Big League (2004) 48: When he was seventeen years of age he was white-washing semi-pro organizations.
1932		Sydney Morn. Herald 15 Aug. 6/4: Waverley Deafeated. Marrickville ‘White Washed’ [...] The latter surprised Marrickville by recording a ‘whitewash’ against it.
2003		People’s Rev. Nepal 11–17 Dec. 🌐 Pakistan won the first one-day by 3 wickets, second one-day by 124 runs, third by 51 runs and fourth by 7 wickets at their home ground. Pakistani team performed excellent cricket to whitewash the series 5–0.

4. in sexual contexts [the whiteness of the semen].