Meanings
- CanadaUSarchaicdialectaluncountableDried buffalo or cow dung, sometimes used as fuel by pioneers.
Bodewash warmed many an early Manitoba settler.
1998, Canadian Geographic, volume 118, page 293 more examples
Bodewash. (Fr. bois de vache.) Dried cow-dung, used for fuel on the treeless plains of the Far West.
[1877, John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms […], 4th edition, page 56We therefore gathered a quantity of dry buffalo dung [bois de vache or “bodewash”] with which we made shift to keep the mosquitoes away; our provisions required no cooking.
1897, Elliott Coues, Alexander Henry, New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest: The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry […], volume 1, pages 305–6But the apostle is done now. His press-teege is mashed flatter’n a bodewash chip.
1925 October 20, William Byron Mowery, “St. Gabriel Zsbyski”, in Adventure, volume 25, number 2, page 174
Origin
- Canadian Frenchbois de vache
- Englishbodewash
Borrowed from Canadian French bois de vache (literally “cow wood”).
More words from Canadian French
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Cite this entry
bodewash. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bodewash
“bodewash.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bodewash. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bodewash,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bodewash.
Source: bodewash on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.