First recorded in 1765–75
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It’s hardly the time of year for a romance to end in a bathing-machine.
From The Lunatic at Large by Clouston, J. Storer (Joseph Storer)
I say, Jeremiah, if ever I get drowned, mind you rush to the bathing-machine and see if there's a copy of 'Ally Sloper' or 'Tit-Bits'.
From Somehow Good by De Morgan, William Frend
But I confess to a shrinking sense of the incompleteness of the prescribed fig-leaves as I stand in the door of the bathing-machine at Tenby.
From Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 by Various
The journey was performed in a conveyance closely resembling a bathing-machine, which accommodated six people, and was drawn by four mules.
From Forty-one years in India From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief by Roberts, Frederick Sleigh
A well-known Duke endeavouring to drive a bathing-machine in Belgrave Square, upsets it, and is only rescued with difficulty by drags from his own balcony.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 20, 1887. 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
I found him and his wife in a little comfortable country house, overlooking the sea, sitting in a small summer-house on wheels, exactly like a bathing machine.
From The Letters of Charles Dickens Vol. 3, 1836-1870 by Dickens, Mamie
This is almost the longest stretch in England without bathing machine or bungalow.
From Wanderings in Wessex An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter by Holmes, Edric
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
