English
douche
Pronunciation Noun

douche (plural douches)

  1. A jet or current of water or vapour directed upon some part of the body to benefit it medicinally; in particular, such a jet directed at the vagina for vaginal irrigation.
    • 1892 Robert Ottiwell Gifford-Bennet, Buxton and its Medicinal Waters, London: John Heywood,
      Massage, or kneading of the whole body, is carried out in this bath after which a steam douche or a warm spray is turned upon the affected parts, according to the nature of the case.
    • 1898 Selma Lagerlöf (trans. Pauline Bancroft Flach), The Story of Gösta Berling, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, Part II, Chapter I, p. 249
      Earth, the great mother, begins to live. Romping like a child she rises from her bath in the spring floods, from her douche in the spring rain.
    • 1973 Jaroslav Hašek (trans. Cecil Parrott), The Good Soldier Švejk, London: William Heinemann, Chapter 4, p. 32,
      In the bathroom, they immersed him in a tub of warm water, and then pulled him out and put him under a cold douche.
  2. Something that produces the jet or current in the previous sense, such as a syringe.
  3. (slang, derogatory, by ellipsis) Ellipsis of douchebag#English|douchebag: A contemptible person; a worthless, brainless or disgusting person (earlier douchebag).
    • 1991 Anthrax, "Startin' Up a Posse", from album Attack of the Killer B's (song lyrics)
      You say our records are offensive, (You're a douche, you're a douche.)
Related terms Translations Translations
  • French: poire de lavement
  • Russian: спринцо́вка
  • Spanish: jeringa
Verb

douche (douches, present participle douching; past and past participle douched)

  1. To administer a douche to; to shower; to douse
    • 1926, D. H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent, New York: Knopf, Chapter II,
      […] a frizzy half-white woman who looked as if she had fallen into a flour-sack, her face was so deep in powder, and her frizzy hair and her brown silk dress so douched with the white dust of it.
    • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, Chapter VI, p. 81,
      Mrs. McLash's anger was gone completely, douched not nearly so much by the beer as by this attention to her son.
    • 1992, Edna O'Brien, Time and Tide, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, Chapter 9, p. 66,
      The boxes would reek of the smell of rich plum cake, with brandy or sherry douched over it.
    • 2007, Valerie Allen, On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, p. 153,
      Tragedy acts then like a laxative […] or an aperient […] to douche our systems of humors and emotions that unbalance the soul, so that we may return to the virtuous golden mean, to homeostatic equilibrium.
  2. To use a douche.
Translations

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