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• bathing-machine
  bathing-machine

  noun

  a small bathhouse on wheels formerly used as a dressing room and in which bathers could also be transported from the beach to the water.
• bathing machine
  bathing machine

  noun

  a small hut, on wheels so that it could be pulled to the sea, used in the 18th and 19th centuries for bathers to change their clothes

bathing-machine

American  

[bay-thing-muh-sheen] / ˈbeɪ ðɪŋ məˌʃin /

noun

1. a small bathhouse on wheels formerly used as a dressing room and in which bathers could also be transported from the beach to the water.

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bathing machine British  

/ ˈbeɪðɪŋ /

noun

1. a small hut, on wheels so that it could be pulled to the sea, used in the 18th and 19th centuries for bathers to change their clothes

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Etymology

Origin of bathing-machine

First recorded in 1765–75

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bathing-machine bathing machine

It was emphatically a quiet place, with its few neat lodging-houses and humble shops, one solitary bathing-machine, and a couple of pleasure boats now hauled up high and dry.

From Amos Huntingdon by Theodore P. Wilson

The others were dull, blasé-looking creatures compared to him; indeed, he was far too fine for a mere bathing-machine, and had a lovely cushiony back like the animals on which beautiful ladies pirouet in circuses.

From The Chauffeur and the Chaperon by Karl Anderson

It’s hardly the time of year for a romance to end in a bathing-machine.

From The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer (Joseph Storer) Clouston

There was a bath at the beach toward mid-day, followed by a cold collation in the shelter of a rude chalet, which served the ladies in the absence of the customary bathing-machine.

From In the Footprints of the Padres by Charles Warren Stoddard

Someone was thumping on the door of my bathing-machine.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, 1920-09-01 by Various

More than £30,000 was raised to help build the sauna in the style of a 19th Century bathing machine, which since 2020 has been set up permanently at Walpole Bay.

From BBC ● Feb. 19, 2025

The bathing machine was then rolled or dragged far enough into the surf that the lady could slip directly down its steps and into the water without much risk of being seen thus clothed.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2022

They wore voluminous bathing costumes and even made use of a peculiar Victorian contraption called the bathing machine, essentially a small wooden or canvas hut on wheels.

From Slate ● Jul. 3, 2015

Others regard it as a halfway house between Christianity and Atheism, or even as a bathing machine for those who would wade, and fear to plunge, in the waters of Freethought.

From Flowers of Freethought (Second Series) by G. W. (George William) Foote

And in fact he had builded better than he knew, for while he reproached himself, Mary, safe within the tiny bathing machine which the packet company called a cabin, was giving much thought to him.

From The Great House by Stanley John Weyman