Lave is a simple, monosyllabic word that magically makes the mundane act of washing poetic. Shakespeare used it in The Taming of the Shrew when Gremio assured the father of his beloved …

LAVE definition: to wash; bathe. See examples of lave used in a sentence.

Feb 21, 2026 · lave (plural laves) (archaic except literary, poetic) An act of bathing or washing; a bath or bathe, a wash. quotations

lave (leɪv) vb an archaic word for wash [Old English lafian, perhaps from Latin lavāre to wash]

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Lave definition: To wash; bathe.

"Lave." Vocabulary.com Dictionary, Vocabulary.com, https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/lave. Accessed 22 Apr. 2026. Copy citation Examples from books and articles

From Middle English lave, laif, lafe ("remainder, rest, that which is left"), from Old English lāf ("lave, remainder, rest"), from Proto-Germanic *laibō (“remainder”), from Proto-Indo-European *lip- (“to stick, …

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Lave is a verb that means to wash or bathe oneself or another object. It can also refer to the process of flowing or washing against, commonly used to describe how water interacts with a shore or riverbank.