wish-wash
Part of speech: noun
adj
verb
Morphological type: simple
Inflected forms:
form: wish-washes
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: more wish-wash
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most wish-wash
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: wish-washes
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: wish-washing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: wish-washed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: wish-washed
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Any weak, thin drink.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
countable
uncountable
examples: Between the result of the above, and the ordinary wish-wash served as coffee, the difference is too great to be expressed.
The famous bohemian cafés, the Dôme, the Coupole and the Rotonde, still remained; the hooded iron stove still warmed the regulars settled beside the round tables from the wintry streets; the waiter, with the unvarying rudeness of Paris, served the "national coffee," that grayish-brown wish-wash which passed for coffee in Paris and which, like everything labeled "national," roused the suspicion that it wasn't what it was called but only resembled the real thing.
They got 250 grams of bread and wish-wash for breakfast; in the evening, he who had worked got kasha, wish-wash, and bread.
It consisted of bread and for the first course "the usual wish-wash” (balanda), “so-called soup in which several pieces of congealed cabbage floated.”
gloss: Talk, music, or art, or ideas that lack any value, substance, originality, or meaning; dreck.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: It is a thing that fails altogether to interest; a wish-wash that only serves to pass the time.
They confined their sermons on Sunday to the decorous wish-wash in which average men treated in a harmless way subjects to which the people were indifferent.
it is a clearing away of the wish-wash which assumes that lack of national distinction is an international virtue.
What I am doing is asking the senator to explain why Labor has come up with such wish-wash on this matter.
But then all of that seems to be a bunch of wish-wash—nothing more than lip service.
This simile is accurate only if the object of analysis is considered in a void, but in the context of "an old Germanic culture" the performance loses its value and becomes only a "wish-wash."
And Ralph Vaughan Williams 'is now a solitary figure, for his influence has served to produce a steady trickle of pentatonic wish-wash.
gloss: The sound of liquid sloshing
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Martha steadily turned and turned, and the cream within the snowy white sycamore box went 'wish-wash, wish-wash, wish-wash, playing, after all, a very delicious tune in the young farmer's ears, for it suggested yellow butter, and yellow butter suggested sovereigns, and sovereigns suggested home comforts and saving, and above all, the turning of that handle suggested the winning of just the very wife to occupy that home.
Then in the morning the washing of the deck; rush comes an engine pipe on the floor–ceases, is renewed, flourishes about, rushes again; then suddenly half a dozen brooms, wish-wash, wish-wash, scrib-scrub, scratching and roaring alternately.
As they lay there, dazedly reliving the adventure that had brought them to this place, they heard the sound of the wish-wash-wish of lapping water.
Yet at these moments, that sound was not a single sound. There was another beat in the warmth of the wish-wash.
gloss: Vapid; lackluster; mediocre
pos: adj
examples: Of course we fear to address ourselves to those gentlemen whose reading is limited to the daily newspaper and novels of the wish-wash order.
To suit a degraded English taste, foreigners like the late Mr. Lŏhr, had to write down to the level of the wish-wash drawing-room ballad.
After-effects are in this case in absolute opposition to first impressions —indeed nothing could better betoken a variation of the wish-wash order than that it should be instantly appreciated.
With an example of the wish-wash composer, and his wish-wash lady love, before my eyes, I could only congratulate the Philistines.
By the time it gets to that point they are already disccouraged because they have been discouraged from the fact that they are looked upon as the wish-wash, that they are not going to make it in the entertainment industry and right there that is a discouraging factor.
gloss: Unfocussed, meandering or impulsive
pos: adj
examples: While you are sitting by the side of the placid Thames, under shades of your own planting, planning the operations of a next winter's campaign, we are in the wish-wash way at Margate, amidst deep caverns, high cliffs, and expanded waters, enjoying the less calm, but more sublime objects of Nature.
Be nothing, do nothing, say nothing, and the world will let you slip into eternity damned by your own wish-wash, willy-nilly life.
he had a wish-wash way of regarding matters.
gloss: To slosh around.
pos: verb
examples: And that night, with the stars jumping and the air lating cold (for we were up in the 40's), and the John wish-washing through the seas at three leagues the hour, MacMuir told me the story of Mungo Maxwell.
A little scalloped cove where weedy creatures Trail in and out, wish-washing on the tide .
The sea doesn't care about you and me, It goes on all the time Wish-wish-washing away out there (In a way that tells you it doesn't care) With a sort of wistful weary rhyme, The sad old song of the sea.
Where the waves wish-wash, and the foghorn blows, And the blowfish nibble at your toes - oes - oes, The blowfish nibble at your toes.
This you will understand when I tell you that in consequence of these same defects I have had water an inch or two deep in my cabin, wish-washing about ever since we left Madeira.
gloss: To behave in a wishy-washy manner, to vacillate
pos: verb
examples: Hain't been a fair election in 15 years to my knowing, and I am confident about what I am talking about, but I am getting sick and tired of this wish-washing about eating tickets; have known them to do this after election.
With his eyes glued on the fall elections, President Truman is wish-washing this country into certain war with Russia .
What would your brother do if he found out you were drawing up blood pacts and then wish-washing your way through them?
For someone who went on a whole rant about sentimental wish-washing and the pitfall of emotions, he sure did a whole lot of wish-washing and pitfalling himself back in his days, didn't he?
Related words: wishy-washy
Translations: