wash out v.
1. (orig. milit.) to remove, to cancel, to dismiss (e.g. from a course).
![]() | N&Q 12 Ser. IX 348: Wash Out (To). To cancel, suppress. | |
![]() | (con. 1916) Her Privates We (1986) 200: This overcoat business will have to be washed out. | |
![]() | Right Ho, Jeeves 224: Why not chuck the whole idea of hitching up with me? Wash it out altogether. | |
![]() | Cry Tough! 94: His mother and father didn’t understand him [...] And now – Larry and Bull – had washed him out. | |
![]() | Vice Trap 51: I’d been in basic training [...] and I was through the next week, washed out. | |
![]() | Billy Bunter at Butlins 10: Too late to wash it out now, isn’t it, Greeney? |
2. (US) to lose all one’s money, esp. from gambling.
![]() | Runyon on Broadway (1954) 121: We are washed out. We owe every bookmaker at the track. | ‘The Snatching of Bookie Bob’ in
3. to lose or spoil anything.
![]() | Spicy Adventure Stories Aug. 🌐 You were a pilot on the Trans-American Air Lines. You washed out your ship over the desert. | ‘Black 13’ in|
![]() | A Flying Tiger’s Diary (1984) 69: He is okay but washed out his landing gear. | 31 Dec. in
4. (US) to die, to be killed.
![]() | Great Adventure 183: He was in a bad spot to defend himself [but] he had ideas that were decidedly averse to getting washed out . |
5. to fail, e.g. a course.
![]() | Letters Home (1944) 10 May 5: Such a great number ‘wash-out’ (fail) that I wouldn’t want anyone to know if I failed the course. | |
![]() | Battle Cry (1964) 49: There’s a kid [...] who wants to make Sea School but he washes out. | |
![]() | Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 44: wash out – Fail completely. | |
![]() | Lex. of Cadet Lang. 420: usage: ‘He washed out in Chem.’. | |
![]() | Destination: Morgue! (2004) 59: They checked out the Standard Club [...] The Standard Club washed out. | ‘Stephanie’ in|
![]() | Whiplash River [ebook] ‘I probably should have washed out at Quantico. My first SAC actually told me that straight up’. |
6. (US) vtr. to kill, to assassinate.
![]() | Requiem in Utopia 70: There must have been a dozen opportunities to wash him out before he left London. Why wasn’t it done? |