Prewashes

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. Preliminary washes given to clothes or fabric before the main laundering cycle ; to wash something beforehand so that the main wash removes stubborn dirt more easily
2. Separate initial cycles run on laundry to loosen soil before the regular wash ; the act of giving garments a first wash in advance of the principal cleaning
3. Short early washing stages applied to textiles to remove heavy grime ; the action of cleaning something in advance of its full wash

Etymology: "Prewash" is a plain compound: "pre-" (from Latin "prae," meaning "before") attached to "wash." English "wash" goes back to Old English "wascan," which descends from a Germanic verb, and the Latin-derived prefix is the only foreign element here. Because the word is built from two parts that were already English, there is no hidden foreign history to uncover. The prefix "pre-" carries most of the meaning. Attached to a verb, it means an action done in advance of the main one, so a prewash is the light cycle run before the main wash, used to loosen dirt and stains. The plural "prewashes" simply counts several of these cycles or treatments.

Synonyms: presoak