[f. WHITE sb. 18 + WASH v. 9 b.]
1. trans. To plaster over (a wall, etc.) with a white composition; to cover or coat with whitewash. Also absol.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Enxalvegar, to white washe a house.
1707. J. Stevens, trans. Quevedo’s Com. Wks. (1709), 329. She that White-washes her House, has a Mind to lett it.
1780. Coxe, Russ. Discov., 216. The houses are … plaistered and white-washed.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xliii. There were workmen … altering, repairing, scrubbing, painting, and white-washing.
1834. L. Ritchie, Wand. Seine, 104. To whitewash a church is, in our eyes, a profanity.
1877. C. Geikie, Christ, xxix. I. 485. The other [tomb] … whitewashed, to warn passers by not to defile themselves by too near an approach to the dead.
b. To apply a cosmetic ‘whitewash’ to.
1912. C. N. & A. M. Williamson, Guests of Hercules, xvii. 214. She whitewashed her face and had strange eyes.
c. intr. To become coated with a white efflorescence: see WHITEWASHING vbl. sb. 1 b.
1889. C. T. Davis, Bricks, Tiles, etc. (ed. 2), 90. The bricks made from them [sc. clays on the Hudson River] usually ‘whitewash’ or ‘saltpetre’ upon exposure to the weather.
2. fig. To give a fair appearance to; to free, or attempt to free, from blame or taint; to cover up, conceal, or gloss over the faults or blemishes of.
With various shades of meaning: now usually somewhat contemptuous, and implying a false appearance of good.
1762. Colman, Prose Sev. Occas. (1787), II. 34. Such as are blackened in the North Briton are … white-washed in the Auditor.
1764. Hor. Walpole, Mem. Reign Geo. III. (1845), II. 35. A poet and an author will go as far in whitewashing a munificent tyrant.
1809. Sir G. Jackson, Diaries & Lett. (1873), I. 36. To be entirely exonerated from all blame, or—in the familiar language of the day—to be whitewashed.
1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, xxxi. A quadroon and white make the mustee or one-eighth black, and the mustee and while the mustafina, or one-sixteenth black. After that, they are whitewashed, and considered as Europeans.
a. 1845. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Ser. III. House-Warm., x. Snore Hill (which we have since whitewash’d to Snow).
1856. C. Kingsley, in N. Brit. Rev., XXVI. 87. He [Mr. Froude] makes no attempt (he has been accused thereof) to white-wash Henry: all that he does is, to remove as far as he can, the modern layers of ‘black-wash.’
1867. Trollope, Chron. Barset, I. vii. 51. She would have given a finger to whitewash Mr. Crawley in the major’s estimation.
1904. Stubbs, Lect. Eur. Hist., II. viii. 229. Charles IX. and his advisers had … whitewashed the cruel persecutions of Philip himself.
b. spec. To clear (a bankrupt or insolvent) by judicial process from liability for his debts. Also with the debts, etc., as obj., and intr. for pass. to go through the bankruptcy court.
1762. Boston Evening Post, 2 Aug. (Thornton, Amer. Gloss.).
1773. Foote, Bankrupt, II. (1776), 37. Pass’d a few necessary notes to get him number and value, white-wash’d him, and sent him home.
1819. Sporting Mag. (N. S.), IV. 30. Two baronets’ sons pleading to be white-washed, but remanded for fraud towards their creditors.
1832. Egan, Bk. Sports, 98/2. The unthinking dashing sparks whitewash their long accounts for twist, tape, and buckram.
1837. Thackeray, Ravenswing, i. If I’m dunned, I whitewash.
1881. Emma J. Worboise, Sissie, xxvii. I am by no means sure that your father would not prefer to be made a bankrupt!… he would be ‘whitewashed,’ in vulgar parlance.
3. In Baseball and other games: To beat (the opponents) so that they fail to score. U.S. colloq.
1884. Boston (Mass.) Jrnl., 2 Oct., 4. Buffalo Whitewashes Providence, and Philadelphia Detroit.
