laundry
Americannoun
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articles of clothing, linens, etc., that have been or are to be washed.
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a business establishment where clothes, linens, etc., are laundered.
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a room or area, as in a home or apartment building, reserved for doing the family wash.
noun
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a place where clothes and linen are washed and ironed
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the clothes or linen washed and ironed
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the act of laundering
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of laundry
1350–1400; Middle English lavandrie < Middle French lavanderie. See launder, -y 3
Explanation
Laundry refers to the clothes and bedding that you can wash in your washing machine or at the laundromat. Nothing smells quite as good as clean laundry. When you do your laundry, you wash your dirty clothes, as well as any towels, sheets, and other linens that could use a wash too. A laundry room is the place in an apartment building, business, or dormitory where there are washers and dryers. Sometimes people send their laundry out to a commercial laundry, where they pay someone else to wash their things. Laundry has a Latin root, lavare, "to wash."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Laundry bags around the room are proof they’ve been here for almost a week.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 20, 2026
In Napa Valley, the French Laundry and others say a planned apartment complex isn’t a good fit.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 27, 2026
The chef -- who trained at the Spanish restaurant El Bulli, also once considered the world's best, and at French Laundry in California -- has previously admitted to losing his cool.
From Barron's • Mar. 12, 2026
The Chef’s Garden Best of the Season Box – The Chef’s Garden is a family-owned regenerative farm that supplies some of the country’s best restaurants, including Eleven Madison Park and The French Laundry.
From Salon • Dec. 4, 2025
Laundry felt like a luxury at this point, something that people with fewer worries and more time did for themselves.
From "Far from the Tree" by Robin Benway
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.
