hairwashing

English

Etymology

hair +‎ washing

Noun

hairwashing (usually uncountable, plural hairwashings)

1. The washing of hair.
   • 1933, Mrs. White Mountain Smith [i.e., Dama Margaret Smith], Indian Tribes of the Southwest, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, page 46:

     The wedding ceremony consists of hairwashings in yucca-root water and eating marriage mush from a wedding basket.

   • 1983, Lillian Cantleberry, Sarah’s Story, St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, →ISBN, page 148:

     Hagar did not come back to me for my massages, manicures, and hairwashings.

   • 1988, Augustus Y. Napier, The Fragile Bond: In Search of an Equal, Intimate and Enduring Marriage, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 296:

     We read to these children in tender tones, loving the snuggled warmth of their bodies, delighting in their baths and hairwashings and in their little clothes; enjoying the feel of their hands in ours on our long, naming-the-world walks.

   • 1985, Nicola West, Comeback, Toronto, Ont.: Harlequin Books, published 1986, →ISBN, page 41:

     Sometimes, she thought, Craig Gleniston did display those endearingly out-of-touch characteristics one expected of an academic—he’d evidently never heard of the short haircuts and blowdriers that made it unnecessary to give over an entire evening to hairwashing.