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.
He would make a splendid charger for the adjutant of a Yeomanry corps, and out of training might be put in the harness of a bathing-machine.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, October 21st 1893 by Various
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 Stoddard, Charles Warren
A G. B. T. cart once married a bathing-machine, and they called the child tum-tum.
From From Sea to Sea Letters of Travel by Kipling, Rudyard
This afternoon, clad in a well-cut flannel suit, and wearing a straw hat, he sat on the steps of a bathing-machine on the beach at Helmstone.
From The New Gulliver and Other Stories by Pain, Barry
I gazed along the shore in each direction, hoping to discover a bathing-machine, and so satisfy myself that the island was inhabited.
From Bill the Minder by Robinson, W. Heath (William Heath)
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
Before I could reach my bathing machine, I was drenched through and through, I don't know where to, but long beyond the skin.
From Happy-Thought Hall by Burnand, F. C. (Francis Cowley), Sir
But in Boulogne it was reported and believed that he was captured and brought to land in a bathing machine.
From France in the Nineteenth Century by Latimer, Elizabeth
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.
