wash down

verb

1. to wash completely, esp from top to bottom

2. to take drink with or after (food or another drink)

Idioms and Phrases

Clean by washing from top to bottom, as in He always washes down the walls before painting . [Second half of 1800s]

Drink a liquid after eating food or taking medicine, as in He washed down the pills with a glass of water . [c. 1600]

Example Sentences

It was then washed down with water from the Nile to clean the surface, and we got ready to start working.

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He dined on venison Scotch egg washed down with Buckfast tonic wine, which Fallon said had left him feeling a bit worse for wear.

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Mr Guist said stones and gravel had washed down from the Mourne Mountains making some roads in the area almost impassable for vehicles.

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She added that it was common practice for utilities to wash down equipment after a fire before the system was reenergized.

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The famous ballad 'McAlpine's Fusiliers' remembers how they "sweated blood and they washed down mud with pints and quarts of beer".

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Related Words

• consume 
• drain 
• gulp 
• guzzle 
• inhale 
• quaff 
• sip 
• slurp 
• suck