laundry
Americannoun
-
articles of clothing, linens, etc., that have been or are to be washed.
-
a business establishment where clothes, linens, etc., are laundered.
-
a room or area, as in a home or apartment building, reserved for doing the family wash.
noun
-
a place where clothes and linen are washed and ironed
-
the clothes or linen washed and ironed
-
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.
Doing laundry, cleaning the tub, getting your upper lip waxed at a nearby salon — these are all chores that fall into this category.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 30, 2026
Many of you are doing it responsibly, too: The overwhelming majority are taking care of housework or laundry, while running errands was the second-most common piece of personal business being done during professional time.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 30, 2026
A new California law will narrow the laundry list of food date labels on products to two, eliminating consumer confusion and halting the unintentional food waste that has resulted.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 26, 2026
She was interrogated, accused of being a spy, stripped of her security clearance and sent back to her unit in Guildford, where she was put on laundry duty.
From BBC • Jun. 22, 2026
Somehow, Chicken had convinced her to take the laundry basket outside.
From "Caterpillar Summer" by Gillian McDunn
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.
