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Glite Dictionary
🥤 To swallow with drink 🌊 To flow away
to wash down

to wash down

18 4.4
To swallow food with a drink or ease a bad feeling by drinking
  • phrasal verb
  • /wɔʃ daʊn/
: tragar
  • When you finish that you can wash it down with a piece of cake.
  • washing down pills
  • washed it down with coffee
  • washed it down with beer

And then if you wash it down with a nice ice gold Coke or Pepsi, you're going to be spiking your blood sugar off the charts, which is going to raise your blood pressure.

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Examples

  • I washed mine down with two cans of O'Doul's, and Clay had his usual Pepsi.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Afterwards, we sat in a small cafe and ate cherries jubilee and zabaglione, washed down with glasses of zinfandel.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • -Well, then, some wine to wash it down.

    Kull the Conqueror (1997)

  • Oh, sure, wash it down with a bottle of beer.

    F.A.R.T.: The Movie (1991)

  • Have some soup and wash it down.

    Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960)

  • That's something to wash it down with.

    Payday (1973)

  • A martini to wash down a pill.

    Barefoot in the Park (1967)

  • Arnie took a long pull on his bottle of Anchor Steam to wash it down.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • We giggled about that, then each took out a green pill and washed it down with the last of our Cokes.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • After the spicy curry, I like to wash down it with a cold glass of water.

Synonyms

to swallow
vsto wash down
357 1.0

To make food or drink move from the mouth into the stomach

uses a drink to help that action immediately after eating
to down
vsto wash down
  • Informal
161 5.4

Eat or drink something quickly and completely

involves using a drink to help swallow immediately rather than just speed
to drown
vsto wash down
  • Informal
46 6.5

Try to get rid of a bad feeling by using something else, for example drinking

is specifically used with a drink to soothe rather than to overwhelm by anything
to gulp down
vsto wash down
  • Informal
9 3.1

To eat or drink something quickly without stopping

is about using a drink to swallow right away rather than greedy speed
to get down
vsto wash down
6 4.4

To manage to swallow food or medicine when it is hard

uses a drink to help passage instead of needing extra effort to swallow

How Quickly

to bolt down
  • Informal
1 3.7
to chug
  • Informal
29 5.0
to wash down
18 4.4
to gulp
38 2.9
to sip
153 1.0

Surface Forms

wash down infinitive
washed down past
washed down past participle
washing down present participle
washes down third person singular

Morphology

wash + down

The meaning 'to drink something in order to help swallow food' is directly and imageably derived from 'wash' (flowing liquid) + 'down' (movement to a lower place): the drink literally 'washes' the food down the throat, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would likely infer the sense. The secondary metaphorical sense of soothing or lessening with a drink is an obvious extension of the same image and is cross-linguistically common, supporting a transparent classification.

Etymology

Wash down comes from the clear picture of using a drink to 'wash' food 'down' your throat, like rinsing a dry bite with water. That's why it means 'to swallow something with a drink' or 'to soothe or lessen something with a drink'.