BATH, BATHE
A bath is a long, low container that you fill with water and sit in to wash yourself.
1. He leaped out of the bath and grabbed a towel
2. The bathroom had two basins, a huge bath and more towels than I had ever seen.
If you bath someone, or give them a bath, you wash them in a bath.
3. She will show you how to bath the baby.
4. I wonder if you’d give the children a bath?
You do not say that people ‘bath’ themselves. British speakers say that someone has a bath and American speakers say that someone takes a bath or, more formally, that they bathe.
5. I had a bath and then I shaved.
6. Welch was about to take a bath.
7. I found myself running up the stairs to bathe.
In British English, when someone bathes, they swim or play in a lake or river or in the sea. This use is rather old-fashioned. It is more common to say that someone ‘swims’ or ‘goes for a swim’.
8. He loved to stay at Oxford and bathe in the river.
9. It is dangerous to bathe in the sea here.
Bathe can also be used with a direct object, when it means to gently wash something. For example, you can bathe a wound or bathe someone’s eyes.
10. She really wanted to bathe his eyes because they looked bloodshot.
Other words
American speakers of English call a bath a ‘bathtub’ or ‘tub’.
11. I spent hours in the warmth of the bathtub.
12. I lowered myself deeper into the tub.
