DCHP-1 Online

wash ((n.)) [< Algonk. ; cf. Cree wate lair; see note below]

• • The above etymology is based on the fact that wash in this sense occurs only in trapping contexts in North America. Furthermore, the following quotes suggest fairly wide use of Cree and Ojibwa forms of a parent Algonkian word with the basic meaning of "lair."

  • 1772  (1908)  [Leaving the river on one hand, came to some high land named Mikisew Wache, or Eagle hills, where we pitched.]
  • 1773  (1908)  [. . . all the Natives were pitched further on, toward Waskesew-Wachee. . . .]
  • 1860  (1956)  Wisch is the pure Ojibbeway orthography and pronunciation of the word. The French voyageurs have accepted it in their language, and turned it into "wasch" or "waschi."
  • 1921  The hunter must make the best of his two short opportunities; that is, unless he already knows where the bear will "den up," and is counting on killing him in his o-wazhe--or as the white hunters and traders call it "wash"--his den.

• 1a n. an underwater exit from a beaver lodge.

  • c1804  (1890)  But should the beavers get into any of those numerous holes or washes which they dig around their habitations, they can often baffle the united efforts, both of dogs and hunters.
  • 1763  (1901)  It [a beaver lodge] is always entirely surrounded by water; but, in the banks adjacent, the animal provides holes or washes, of which the entrance is below the surface, and to which it retreats on the first alarm.
  • 1907  This was done to scare the beaver out into the lake and make them resort to their washes [which] . . . have their entrances under water.

• 1b n. the beaver lodge itself, including the escape routes.

  • 1810  (1890)  When two or more Indian work a beaver lodge, the one who draws the beaver out of his lodge or wash gives it to some other one present.
  • 1860  (1956)  [Here he saw a "wisch," or beaver house.]
  • 1908  It is not an uncommon experience for hunters to find one or more beavers dead of disease in their houses or "washes."

• 2 n. the living quarters of a muskrat, built on islands in and around a muskrat swamp.

  See also: muskrat house  

  • 1908  . . . many thousands of the animals [muskrats] perished miserably under the ice and in their frozen up "washes". . . .

• 3 n. a bear's den.

  • 1921  [A bear's] wash may consist of a hollow tree or a hollow log, a cave, or any suitable shelter formed by an uprooted tree.
  • 1947  Once it came back with a full-grown wolf and another time it dug a bear out of his wash and drove him right to the cabin.