Other forms: baths
A bath is the long container you fill with warm water and lie in, and also the act of doing so. Run a bath, have a bath, get in the bath.
British and American usage part company here. British English says have a bath and calls the container a bath; American English says take a bath and calls the container a bathtub. The verb bathe is different again — in British English to bathe is to swim or to wash a wound, and to bath somebody is to give them a bath. Note the plural baths, said with a voiced th in British English, meaning a public swimming pool.
1nounbathThe long container you fill with water and lie in.
“The bath is too small for anybody over six foot.”
2nounactAn act of washing in a bath.
“She had a bath and went straight to bed.”
3nounpublicA public swimming pool, in British use.
“The baths are closed for repairs until August.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
bath is a washing container.
Also accepted in games: bathtub, tub
Old English baeth comes from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to warm — the same root as bake. A bath is named for its heat rather than its water, which explains why a cold bath still counts as one.
Middle English
bath
English, today
bath
From Middle English bath. From Middle English bath, baþ, from Old English bæþ (“bath”), from Proto-West Germanic baþ, from Proto-Germanic baþą (“bath”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰeh₁- (“to warm”). Corresponding inherited verbs are beath and bathe. Cognate with Danish -, Dutch -, Norwegian -, and Swedish bad (“bath”), Faroese - and Icelandic bað (“bath”), German Bad (“bath”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA