verb

• 1 literary Wash.

  ‘she ran cold water in the basin, laving her face and hands’

  More example sentences

  • ‘As one laved one's chest one could conjure up images of bowler hats on the coat rack, well-thumbed Police Gazettes, shoe polish and cigars.’

  Synonyms

  wash, cleanse, wipe, sponge, scrub, mop, rinse, scour, swab, hose down, sluice, sluice down, flush, polish, disinfect

  1. 1.1(of water) wash against or over (something)
     ‘the sea below laved the shore with small, agitated waves’
     More example sentences

     • ‘But in Salzburg, a land laved by mists and mountain air, all the star-power in the world fades away before the glory of Mozart, its most illustrious son.’
     • ‘He passes the time by visiting bathhouses, where he writhes in licentious congress soapy enough to lave his sins and conceal the nether regions forbade by Japanese censorship.’
     • ‘Took Nat to the beach, and as we approached the shore I caught the Most Holy Whiff, the perfume of fish and weeds and sun-laved water.’