douche

noun

1. 1

   A jet or current of water or vapour directed upon some part of the body to benefit it medicinally; in particular, such a jet directed at the vagina for irrigation.

   Massage, or kneading of the whole body, is carried out in this bath after which a steam douche or a warm spray is turned upon the affected parts, according to the nature of the case.

   1898 Selma Lagerlöf (trans. Pauline Bancroft Flach), The Story of Gösta Berling, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, Part II, Chapter I, p. 249 https://archive.org/details/storygstaberlin02lagegoog Earth, the great mother, begins to live. Romping like a child she rises from her bath in the spring floods, from her douche in the spring rain.

   In the bathroom, they immersed him in a tub of warm water, and then pulled him out and put him under a cold douche.

2. 2

   Something that produces the jet or current in the previous sense, such as a syringe.

3. 3

   obsoleteA jet or spray of any liquid.

   A douche of spray blinded my brother for a moment. When his eyes were clear of that he saw the monster had passed and was rushing landward.

4. 4

   Variant of douchebagslangEllipsis of douchebag (“objectionable person”).

   You say our records are offensive, (You're a douche, you're a douche.)

   I am saying this to you, John Edward. You are a liar, you are a fake, and you are the biggest douche ever.

   I said I've got a penchant for smokes and kicking douches in the mouth / Sadly for you my last cigarette's gone out

verb

1. 1

   To administer a douche to; to shower; to douse

   […] a frizzy half-white woman who looked as if she had fallen into a flour-sack, her face was so deep in powder, and her frizzy hair and her brown silk dress so douched with the white dust of it.

   Mrs. McLash's anger was gone completely, douched not nearly so much by the beer as by this attention to her son.

   The boxes would reek of the smell of rich plum cake, with brandy or sherry douched over it.

   Tragedy acts then like a laxative […] or an aperient […] to douche our systems of humors and emotions that unbalance the soul, so that we may return to the virtuous golden mean, to homeostatic equilibrium.

2. 2

   To use a douche.

   (In a 2002 study, 58.5 percent of Black women reported douching and 35.6 percent of Hispanic women said they did the same, compared with 26.6 percent of white women.)

Forms

plural

douches

past tense

douched

past participle

douched

present participle

douching

third person singular

douches