Overwash
noun, verb
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The flow of water and sediment over the crest of a beach that does not directly return to the water body. countable, uncountable
Verb
- 1 To wash too much or too often. transitive
"Even worse than being caught in daylight is the mortification, by Mr. Moore’s nocturnal lights, of wearing black clothes so overwashed that they start to look gray."
- 2 To wash or flood over. transitive
"The waves overwashed the stony beach."
- 3 To become flooded. intransitive
"A man on one of the beach islands sends his wife and kids to the shelter, remains behind with their dog to finish boarding up the house, then the only road off the island overwashes, and he's cut off."
Example
More examples"Even worse than being caught in daylight is the mortification, by Mr. Moore’s nocturnal lights, of wearing black clothes so overwashed that they start to look gray."
Etymology
From over- + wash.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.