to wash someone's mouth out with soap
1
8.8
- idiom
- Informal
:
lavarle la boca con jabón
- The lady who commented earlier about washing her kid's mouth out with soap is a great example (awesome strategy, by the way).
Examples
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Now, if you'd washed her mouth out with soap when she was little like I told ya, maybe she'd have some respect.
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When the child used bad language again, the father threatened to wash his mouth out with soap as a punishment.
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So many times we want to blame the teachers or administrators... what about these crazy parents who think washing their kids' mouths out with soap is the right answer?
Blog text (7) -
It all sounds like a variation on the theme of washing the kids' mouths out with soap for using profanity.
Blog text (33) -
The mother decided to wash her son's mouth out with soap after he swore at the dinner table.
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Some parents believe that if you wash a child's mouth out with soap, it will teach them not to use inappropriate words.
Synonyms
5
7.4
To tell someone off for saying rude words, sometimes by putting soap in their mouth
Antonyms
How Harsh
Surface Forms
Morphology
wash + someone's + mouth + out + with + soap
The surface action — literally washing a person's mouth with soap — is directly derivable from the constituents, so the phrase is partly compositional. However, its conventional use as a punitive response to swearing is a culturally specific pragmatic meaning that is not fully predictable from the words alone, so a B1 learner who only knows the constituents may not infer the disciplinary sense.
Etymology
Wash someone's mouth out with soap comes from a real punishment parents used: they would put soap in a child's mouth or wash the mouth after the child said bad words. The bitter taste and cleaning were meant to teach a lesson, so the phrase now means 'to punish someone for using bad language'.