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Wash vs Lap - What's the difference?

wash | lap |

As verbs the difference between wash and lap

is that wash is to clean with water while lap is to rest or recline in a lap, or as in a lap or lap can be to fold, wrap or lap can be (ambitransitive) to take (liquid) into the mouth with the tongue; to lick up with a quick motion of the tongue.

As nouns the difference between wash and lap

is that wash is the process or an instance of washing or being washed by water or other liquid while lap is the loose part of a coat; the lower part of a garment that plays loosely; a skirt; an apron or lap can be the act or process of lapping.

wash

English

Verb

  • To clean with water.
  • To move or erode by the force of water in motion.
  • Heavy rains wash a road or an embankment.
  • (mining) To separate valuable material (such as gold) from worthless material by the action of flowing water.
  • To clean oneself with water.
  • To cover with water or any liquid; to wet; to fall on and moisten.
  • Waves wash the shore.
  • * Milton
  • fresh-blown roses washed with dew
  • * Longfellow
  • [the landscape] washed with a cold, grey mist
  • To be eroded or carried away by the action of water.
  • (figuratively) To be cogent, convincing; to withstand critique.
  • * 2012 , (The Economist), Oct 13th 2012 issue, The Jordan and its king: As beleaguered as ever
  • The king is running out of ideas as well as cash. His favourite shock-absorbing tactic—to blame his governments and sack his prime ministers—hardly washes .
  • To bear without injury the operation of being washed.
  • To be wasted or worn away by the action of water, as by a running or overflowing stream, or by the dashing of the sea; said of road, a beach, etc.
  • To cover with a thin or watery coat of colour; to tint lightly and thinly.
  • To overlay with a thin coat of metal.
  • steel washed with silver

    Usage notes

    In older works and possibly still in some dialects, wesh'' and ''woosh'' may be found as past tense forms. ''Washen may be found as a past participle.

    Derived terms

    * dishwasher * jetwash * wash away * wash down * washed up / all washed up * washer * wash off * wash one's hands of * wash out * wash over * wash up

    Noun

    (washes)
  • The process or an instance of washing or being washed by water or other liquid.
  • I'm going to have a quick wash before coming to bed.
    My jacket needs a wash .
  • A liquid used for washing.
  • The quantity of clothes washed at a time.
  • There's a lot in that wash : maybe you should split it into two piles.
  • (arts) A smooth and translucent .
  • The sound of breaking of the seas, e.g., on the shore.
  • I could hear the wash of the wave.
  • The wake of a moving ship.
  • The ship left a big wash
    Sail away from the wash to avoid rocking the boat.
  • The turbulence left in the air by a moving airplane.
  • A lotion or other liquid with medicinal or hygienic properties.
  • mouth wash
    hand wash
  • Ground washed away to the sea or a river.
  • * Mortimer
  • The wash of pastures, fields, commons, and roads, where rain water hath a long time settled.
  • A piece of ground washed by the action of water, or sometimes covered and sometimes left dry; the shallowest part of a river, or arm of the sea; also, a bog; a marsh.
  • * Shakespeare
  • These Lincoln washes have devoured them.
  • A shallow body of water.
  • In arid and semi-arid regions, the normally dry bed of an intermittent or ephemeral stream; an arroyo or wadi.
  • * 1997 , Stanley Desmond Smith, et al. Physiological Ecology of North American Desert Plants, Nature
  • In some desert-wash systems (which have been termed “xero-riparian”)
  • * 1999 , Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert
  • ... though the wash may carry surface water for only a few hours a year.
  • * 2005 , Le Hayes, Pilgrims in the Desert: The Early History of the East Mojave Desert
  • Rock Spring Wash' continues a short distance then joins Watson '''Wash'''. Water from Rock Spring comes out of the boulder strewn ' wash and disappears into the sand
  • An situation in which losses and gains or advantages and disadvantages are equivalent; a situation in which there is no net change.
  • * 2003 , David Brenner, I Think There's a Terrorist in My Soup , page 100:
  • I knew that for every vote I cast for, say, the Republicans, some kid at a polling place nearby was casting his votes for the Democrats, so it was probably a wash or close to it.
  • Waste liquid, the refuse of food, the collection from washed dishes, etc., from a kitchen, often used as food for pigs; pigwash.
  • (Shakespeare)
  • In distilling, the fermented wort before the spirit is extracted.
  • A mixture of dunder, molasses, water, and scummings, used in the West Indies for distillation.
  • A thin coat of metal laid on anything for beauty or preservation.
  • (nautical) The blade of an oar.
  • The backward current or disturbed water caused by the action of oars, or of a steamer's screw or paddles, etc.
  • Ten strikes, or bushels, of oysters.
  • Derived terms

    * backwash * come out in the wash * car wash * mouthwash * wash and brushup * wash sale * washout * whitewash

    Anagrams

    * *

    See also

    * WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) 1000 English basic words

    lap

    English

    Etymology 1

    Old English '' (skirt or flap of a garment), from (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The loose part of a coat; the lower part of a garment that plays loosely; a skirt; an apron.
  • An edge; a border; a hem, as of cloth.
  • The part of the clothing that lies on the knees or thighs when one sits down; that part of the person thus covered; figuratively, a place of rearing and fostering; as, to be reared in the lap of luxury.
  • The upper legs of a seated person.
  • The boy was sitting on his mother's lap
  • (archaic, euphemistic) The female pudenda.
  • (construction) component that overlaps or covers any portion of the same or adjacent component.
  • Derived terms
    * lapdance, lap-dance, lap dance * lapdog * lapmark * laptop

    Verb

    (lapp)
  • To enfold; to hold as in one's lap; to cherish.
  • * Dryden
  • Her garment spreads, and laps him in the folds.
  • To rest or recline in a lap, or as in a lap.
  • * Praed
  • to lap his head on lady's breast

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) , (etyl) dial. vravle'' "to wind", (etyl) ''goluppare "to wrap, fold up" (from (etyl)). More at envelop, develop The sense of "to get a lap ahead (of someone) on a track" is from 1847, on notion of "overlapping." The noun meaning "a turn around a track" (1861) is from this sense.

    Verb

    (lapp)
  • To fold; to bend and lay over or on something.
  • to lap a piece of cloth
  • to wrap around, enwrap, wrap up
  • to lap a bandage around a finger
  • * Isaac Newton
  • About the paper I lapped several times a slender thread of very black silk.
  • to envelop, enfold
  • lapped in luxury
  • to wind around
  • To place or lay (one thing) so as to overlap another.
  • One laps roof tiles so that water can run off.
  • To polish, e.g., a surface, until smooth.
  • To be turned or folded; to lie partly on or over something; to overlap.
  • The cloth laps''' back; the boats '''lap'''; the edges '''lap .
  • * Grew
  • The upper wings are opacous; at their hinder ends, where they lap over, transparent, like the wing of a fly.
  • To overtake a straggler in a race by completing one more whole lap than the straggler.
  • To cut or polish with a lap, as glass, gems, cutlery, etc.
  • Derived terms
    * lapper

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act or process of lapping.
  • That part of any substance or fixture which extends over, or lies upon, or by the side of, a part of another; as, the lap of a board; also, the measure of such extension over or upon another thing.
  • The amount by which a slide valve at its half stroke overlaps a port in the seat, being equal to the distance the valve must move from its mid stroke position in order to begin to open the port. Used alone, lap refers to outside lap. See Outside lap (below).
  • The state or condition of being in part extended over or by the side of something else; or the extent of the overlapping; as, the second boat got a lap of half its length on the leader.
  • (sports) One circuit around a race track, or one traversal down and then back the length of a pool; as, to run twenty laps; to win by three laps, to swim two laps.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2012 , date=May 13 , author=Andrew Benson , title=Williams's Pastor Maldonado takes landmark Spanish Grand Prix win , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Alonso's second place moves him into a tie on points at the head of the championship with Sebastian Vettel, who was sixth in his Red Bull, passing Button, then Hamilton and finally Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg in quick succession in the closing laps .}}
  • In card playing and other games, the points won in excess of the number necessary to complete a game; — so called when they are counted in the score of the following game.
  • A sheet, layer, or bat, of cotton fiber prepared for the carding machine.
  • A piece of brass, lead, or other soft metal, used to hold a cutting or polishing powder in cutting glass, gems, and the like, or in polishing cutlery, etc. It is usually in the form of wheel or disk, which revolves on a vertical axis.
  • Derived terms
    * lap of honor/lap of honour

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) lapian'', from (etyl) .

    Verb

    (lapp)
  • (ambitransitive) To take (liquid) into the mouth with the tongue; to lick up with a quick motion of the tongue.
  • * Shakespeare
  • They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk.
  • * Sir K. Digby
  • The dogs by the River Nilus's side, being thirsty, lap hastily as they run along the shore.
  • (of water) To wash against a surface with a splashing sound; to swash.
  • * Tennyson
  • I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, / And the wild water lapping on the crag.
    Derived terms
    * lapper