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Synonyms

take a bath

Idioms  

  1. Experience serious financial loss, as in The company took a bath investing in that new product. This idiom, which originated in gambling, transfers washing oneself in a bathtub to being “cleaned out” financially. [Slang; first half of 1900s]

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.

See Examples For:

If there has been rain the night before, the hawk will take a bath in a puddle on the court's roof.

From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026

Ash pointed out that “gold often falls when equities take a bath to cover losing positions on a trading book.”

From Barron's ● Mar. 13, 2026

I’m a shower girl, but sometimes I also just like to take a bath.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2025

“It’s very difficult when you get up in the morning and you can’t take a bath, you can’t shower,” Mack Williams, 59, said as he picked up bottled water from a county distribution site.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 30, 2024

Well, that’s what she meant when she told me to take a bath.

From "Fourth Grade Rats" by Jerry Spinelli

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.

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