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 irrigation.

   In the bathroom, they immersed him in a tub of warm water, and then pulled him out and put him under a cold douche.

   1973, Jaroslav Hašek, chapter 4, in Cecil Parrott, transl., The Good Soldier Švejk, London: William Heinemann, page 32

   2 more examples

   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.

   1892, Robert Ottiwell Gifford-Bennet, Buxton and its Medicinal Waters, London: John Heywood

   1898 Selma Lagerlöf (trans. Pauline Bancroft Flach), The Story of Gösta Berling, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, Part II, Chapter I, p. 249 https://archive.org/details/storygstaberlin02lagegoog 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.

2. Something that produces the jet or current in the previous sense, such as a syringe.
3. obsoleteA jet or spray of any liquid.

   A douche of spray blinded my brother for a moment. When his eyes were clear of that he saw the monster had passed and was rushing landward.

   1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Thunder-Child”, in “The War of the Worlds”, in Pearson’s, London: C[yril] Arthur Pearson, published 1897, page 77, column 1

4. abbreviationellipsishumorousslangvulgarEllipsis of douchebag (“objectionable person”).

   You say our records are offensive, (You're a douche, you're a douche.)

   1991, “Startin' Up a Posse”, in Attack of the Killer B's, performed by Anthrax

   2 more examples

   I am saying this to you, John Edward. You are a liar, you are a fake, and you are the biggest douche ever.

   2002 November 27, Trey Parker, “The Biggest Douche in the Universe” (16:05), in South Park, season 6, episode 15, spoken by Stan

   I said I've got a penchant for smokes and kicking douches in the mouth / Sadly for you my last cigarette's gone out

   2019, “Never Fight a Man With a Perm”, in Joy as an Act of Resistance, performed by Idles

present singular third person douches · participle present douching · participle past douched · past douched

1. transitiveTo administer a douche to; to shower; to douse

   The boxes would reek of the smell of rich plum cake, with brandy or sherry douched over it.

   1992, Edna O'Brien, chapter 9, in Time and Tide, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, page 66

   3 more examples

   […] 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.

   1926, D. H. Lawrence, chapter II, in The Plumed Serpent, New York: Knopf

   Mrs. McLash's anger was gone completely, douched not nearly so much by the beer as by this attention to her son.

   1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VI, in Capricornia, page 81

   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.

   2007, Valerie Allen, On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, page 153

2. intransitiveTo use a douche.

   (In a 2002 study, 58.5 percent of Black women reported douching and 35.6 percent of Hispanic women said they did the same, compared with 26.6 percent of white women.)

   2023 October 1, Jordyn Holman, “Gen Z Wants Feminine Care Brands to Just Say Vagina”, in The New York Times, →ISSN