[prob. f. the verb; cf. WASH sb. 4 d.]
† 1. A cosmetic wash formerly used for imparting a light color to the skin. Obs.
1689. Several Disc. Vanities Modish Women, 175. Her Bottles of White washes, or Cosmeticks.
1713. Addison, Guardian, No. 116, ¶ 1. I have heard a whole Sermon against a White-wash.
1764. Gray, Jemmy Twitcher, 2. When sly Jemmy Twitcher had smugg’d up his face, With a lick of court whitewash,… A wooing he went.
2. A liquid composition of lime and water, or of whiting, size, and water, for whitening walls, ceilings, etc.
1697. Vanbrugh, Relapse, V. iii. A little Glasing, Painting, Whitewash, and Playster, will make it [sc. the house] last thy time.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 161, ¶ 4. The Plaisterer having … obliterated, by his White-wash, all the smoky Memorials which former Tenants had left upon the Cieling.
1776. G. Semple, Building in Water, 81. A Peck of Roach-lime was slacked into White-wash.
1853. Mrs. Gaskell, Cranford, xv. A wholesome smell of plaster and whitewash pervaded the apartment.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Note-bks. (1872), I. 48. Before the whitewash of Cromwell’s time had overlaid their marble pillars.
attrib. and Comb. 1881. Frederick Douglass, in Century Mag., XXIII. 128/2. With whitewash brush in hand, in search of work, he soon disappeared.
1887. Hissey, Holiday on Road, 26. Art-ignoring, whitewash-loving churchwardens.
3. fig. Something that conceals faults or gives a fair appearance: cf. next, 2.
1865. W. G. Palgrave, Arabia, II. 21. Such liberal semblance is merely a surface whitewash.
1883. J. Y. Sargent, in Fortn. Rev., Feb., 284. Washed white with the whitewash of diplomacy.
1898. ‘H. S. Merriman,’ Roden’s Corner, xi. 116. You know your uncle’s reputation—the past one, I mean, not the whitewash.
4. An act of ‘whitewashing,’ as of a bankrupt; also (U.S. colloq.) a victory at baseball or other game in which the opponents fail to score.
1851. J. Henderson, Excurs. N. S. Wales, I. 64. When once in a twelvemonth your agent goes smash, And bolts to New Zealand, or gets a whitewash.
1884. Boston (Mass.) Jrnl., 13 Sept. The Bostons Give the Lawrence Team a Whitewash Bath.
1920. Westm. Gaz., 22 May, 2/2. The Report is a fairly comprehensive whitewash of everybody concerned.
