Wash means to clean something using water, usually with soap. You wash your hands before dinner, wash the dishes after a meal, or wash your dog when it gets muddy. A washing machine washes clothes by tumbling them in soapy water.

The word also describes how water moves over or against something. Ocean waves wash onto the beach, then pull back into the sea. Rain might wash dirt off your bike, or a stream might slowly wash away the soil along its banks over many years.

When colors or details fade, we sometimes say they're washed out. A photograph left in bright sunlight might look washed out, with its colors pale and weak. Someone who's exhausted might say they feel washed out too.

Wash can also mean something that balances out, like when gains and losses cancel each other. If you spend five dollars on a game but then sell it for five dollars, that's a wash: you're back where you started.

In older times, people used wash to describe a thin coating of paint or color, related to the word whitewash (painting something white, or covering up mistakes or wrongdoing).