Other forms: bathing, bathed, bathes
To bathe is to wash yourself in water, or to swim. Bathe in the sea, bathe the wound, bathed in light.
In Britain to bathe is to swim outdoors and to bath is to wash in a tub, which is a distinction Americans do not make. Bathing a wound means washing it gently, and bathed in light is the figurative use.
1verbbatheTo wash yourself in water, or to swim.
“The children bathed in the warm sea until the sun went down.”
bathe is a washing.
Old English bathian comes from a Germanic root shared across northern Europe.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰeh₁- — to warm
Proto-Germanic
*baþōną — to bathe
Proto-West Germanic
*baþōn
Old English
baþian — to bathe, wash
Middle English
bathen
English, today
bathe
From Middle English bathen, from Old English baþian (“to bathe, wash”), from Proto-West Germanic baþōn, from Proto-Germanic baþōną (“to bathe”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰeh₁- (“to warm”). Cognate with stq boadje (“to bathe”), Dutch baden (“to bathe”), German Low German baden (“to bathe”), German baden (“to bathe”), Danish bade (“to bathe”), Swedish bada (“to bathe”), Icelandic baða (“to bathe”). More at bath. Compare also bask.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA