to do the dishes
52
1.0
- phrasal verb
:
lavar los platos
- Anna, Fay, Siggy, and Bob are in the kitchen, doing the dishes.
- wash the dishes
- do the dishes after dinner
- doing the dishes in the kitchen
Think of trying to do the dishes or performing open heart surgery.
- Think of trying to do the dishes or performing open heart surgery.
- Like in the shower on a drive, doing the dishes.
- Hey, I'm OK, we're doing the dishes, but all the dishes have to go in the sink.
- Like while I'm at work during service, my primary job has been doing the dishes.
- So about half of the time, our mind is just kind of in the shower, we're driving, we're doing the dishes, we're planning, right?
- So like the reason that I can't get my robot to learn how to like, I don't know, do the dishes in the kitchen.
- Even when your parents say, hey, go do the dishes right now, like you reluctantly go to do the dishes compared to, you know, hey, get these dishes done.
- They was getting mad at each other like she you mad like she ain't do the dishes.
- I still do the dishes with my wife and he says I have bought a couple of nicer suits.
Examples
-
Hannah, will you help me do the dishes, please?
-
If you let go of me, I'll do the dishes.
-
I want him to want to do the dishes.
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Oh, please, just let me do the dishes.
-
I did the dishes though.
-
One might say I have the duty to do the dishes for those with whom I live.
Academic text (1999) -
I'm not doing the dishes.
-
We had supper, did the dishes, and then sat around in their living room.
Fiction book (1990) -
After dinner, Terry volunteered to do the dishes and I went to my room.
Fiction book (1996) -
After our dinner party, I always ask my friends to help me do the dishes.
Synonyms
42
1.0
To clean plates, bowls, and cups after a meal
41
1.1
To wash the dishes after a meal
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to wash the plates, cups, and other items' is directly derivable from 'do' (to perform a task) combined with 'dishes' (plates/crockery); the article 'the' does not change the compositional meaning. This is a standard household-chores construction found across languages (e.g., equivalents for ‘wash the dishes’), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would understand it.
Etymology
Do the dishes comes from the simple, literal picture of someone at the sink scrubbing soapy dishes after a meal. So today it means 'to wash the plates, cups, and other kitchen items' used for eating and cooking.