wash away

present singular third person washes away · participle present washing away · participle past washed away · past washed away

1. To eliminate or destroy by fast-moving water, such as a flood or a high sea.

   Thousands were left homeless as the flood waters washed away the eastern part of the city.

   4 more examples

   The main East Coast line from Edinburgh to Berwick was blocked at Cockburnspath and Grantshouse by flood water, which washed away part of an embankment, and by the collapse of about 300 tons of rubble on to the track.

   1956 October, “Summer Floods in Scotland”, in Railway Magazine, page 658

   The price of deforestation over the centuries is that floodwater comes up so high at times that low bridges are liable to be washed away. On the Szechuan side, it is Hsiushan county. On the Kweichow side, the Sungtao Miao Autonomous County.

   Travels in China, 1966-71

   1973, Rewi Alley, “Some Hunan Journeys”, in 中国见闻 [Travels in China, 1966-71], Peking: New World Press, →OCLC, page 27

   Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale. The early, intense onset of the monsoon on June 14th swelled rivers, washing away roads, bridges, hotels and even whole villages. Rock-filled torrents smashed vehicles and homes, burying victims under rubble and sludge.

   2013 June 29, “High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 28

   Services between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh Waverley via Falkirk High are currently suspended, following a 30-metre breach of the Union Canal that occurred on August 12 after torrential rain and thunderstorms. The thousands of gallons of water that cascaded onto the railway line below washed away track, ballast and overhead line equipment, and undermined embankments along a 300-metre section of Scotland's busiest rail link.

   2020 August 26, “Network News: Major flood damage severs key Edinburgh-Glasgow rail artery”, in Rail, page 21

2. broadlyfigurativelyTo eliminate.

   This latest piece of information, if true, will wash away all doubt.

   1 more example

   Why would this shared history be so easily washed away? In her introduction, Colley directed us away from the notion that nations were characterised by cultural and ethnic homogeneity – of “blood and soil” – and towards Benedict Anderson’s definition of a nation as an “imagined community”

   2014 September 16, Ian Jack, “Is this the end of Britishness”, in The Guardian