Etymology

sustainwash

S1U1S1T1A1I1N1W4A1S1H4

Today it means: To engage in the sustainability analogue of, or subset of, greenwashing. Full definition →

Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

From sustain + -wash, following the established pattern of greenwash, pinkwash, and similar forms (which came ultimately from the figurative-extension sense of whitewash as "to slap a paintjob over the truth to hide it and to give a specious nice appearance"); this form also rhymes with brainwash, as does humanewash.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.