[f. verbal phr. to wash out: see WASH v. 13.]
1. An act of washing out a cistern, etc.; a pipe or other appliance for doing this. Also attrib.
1877. Hellyer, Plumber, ix. 86. This ‘water-battery’ water-closet is similar in principle and shape to the ‘wash-out’ closet-basin.
1903. Architect, 24 April, Suppl. 23/2. Valves are provided en route to divide the delivery main into sections and control the supply. Wash-outs and air-valves are provided, also hydrants in the villages for fire protection.
1884. Health Exhib. Catal., 91/1. Shanks’ Patent ‘Tubal’ Washout Closets with Patent ‘Reliable’ Syphon Cisterns.
1901. Feilden’s Mag., IV. 430/1. There was a 6-in. washout pipe which was connected to the 12 in. main.
2. Mining. A place where a portion of a coal or ironstone seam has been carried away by a stream, a deposit of sandstone being left in its place.
1876. Cudworth, Rambles Bradford, 56.
1911. Act 1 & 2 Geo. V., c. 50 § 20. The position, direction, and extent of every known fault of every seam with its vertical throw, and … every known washout and intrusive dyke.
3. The removal by flood of a portion of a hillside; a hole or breach in a railway or road track caused by flood or erosion. Orig. U.S.
1883. Daily News, 29 Sept., 2/1. The well built Mexican Railway … has had difficulty enough to prevent ‘wash-outs.’
1883. Standard, 25 Dec., 5/4. A train … ran into a wash-out.
1885. Roosevelt, Hunting Trips, 153 (Cent.). The rains and torrents cutting away the land into channels, which at first are merely wash-outs, and at last grow into deep canyons.
1910. Times, 5 March, 5–6. On the Peking-Hankau Railway … washouts may extend, not for one or two miles, but for fifty or a hundred miles.
4. slang. A disappointing failure, a ‘sell.’
1902. Westm. Gaz., 1 Nov., 2/1. As Harker remarked, ‘Half a guinea for an essay is no wash-out.’
1915. P. Macgill, Amateur Army, 57. ‘What the dickens did you take this here [rifle] for?’ he cried. ‘It’s a blooming wash-out.’ Footn. ‘Wash-out’ is a term used by the men when their firing is so wide of the mark that it fails to hit any spot on the card. The men apply it indiscriminately to anything in the nature of a failure.
