Meanings
- attributiveidiomaticoftenpluralplural onlyUsed in reference to an error in which something valuable is discarded in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted.
From this perspective, the limits of the radical feminist worldview seemed increasingly frustrating to the feminist radicals. In some cases, this led to a baby and bathwater sort of reaction, where even the important lessons of consciousness raising were dismissed as middle-class diversions.
2012, Michael Staudenmaier, Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization, 1969–1986, Edinburgh: AK Press, →ISBN, page 23
Origin
Cite this entry
baby and bathwater. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/baby%20and%20bathwater
“baby and bathwater.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/baby%20and%20bathwater. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “baby and bathwater,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/baby%20and%20bathwater.
Source: baby and bathwater on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.