vbl. sb. [f. WHITEWASH v. + -ING1.]
1. The action or process of coating with whitewash.
1663. Gerbier, Counsel, 80. White-washing and stopping, at three pence a yard.
1732. Phil. Trans., XXXVII. 234. They use Glue made very thin … instead of Size, for White-washing.
1834. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Boarding-ho., i. The area and the area steps, and the street-door and the street-door steps … were all as clean … as indefatigable white-washing, and hearth-stoning, and scrubbing and rubbing, could make them.
b. The production of a white efflorescence (saltpetre rot: see SALTPETRE 2) on a brick wall.
1889. C. T. Davis, Bricks, Tiles, etc. (ed. 2), 97. In damp positions … brick walls are often covered with a crystalline substance of a white fleecy appearance, suggestive of hoarfrost,… which … absorbs the humidity of the atmosphere … and carries off the paint in large patches, and the process is called by the English workmen ‘saltpetring,’ and sometimes in this country it is termed ‘whitewashing.’
2. fig.: see WHITEWASH v. 2, 2 b.
1801. Marvellous Love-Story, II. 320. To set at defiance the wholesome restrictions imposed upon society, by countenancing Mrs. Smeddy’s white-washing [by marriage after an immoral connection].
1823. Blackw. Mag., XIV. 101. I have been white-washed by the Insolvent Court…, let all my sins go with that white-washing.
1855. Kingsley, Misc. (1859), I. 7. I think the book an altogether foolish … book,… having but one object, the whitewashing of James.
3. attrib. (in lit. or fig. sense).
1817. W. T. Moncrieff, Giovanni in Lond., I. iv. With your tailor debts contract, In the Bench for three months pack’d. Get out by the white-washing act, And be as clean as ever.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., White-washing-apparatus … for whitening walls and ceilings.
1890. Daily News, 28 Feb., 7/2. (Court of Bankruptcy) We allege that no assets have been recovered, and that this is a whitewashing case.
So Whitewashing ppl. a.
1883. J. Hatton, in Harper’s Mag, Nov., 829/2. The reaction that has set in against whitewashing church-wardens and the other Goths and Vandals of the interregnum now happily at an end.
