laundry
noun
Simple meaning
Clothes and sheets that need washing or have just been washed.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
lawndreeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlɔndɹi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A place or room where laundering is done - including, by extension, other forms of laundering than clothes washing.
Garments or white goods that can be cleaned by laundering
That which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered.
A business whose primary purpose is to conceal the origins of money received illegally.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A place or room where laundering is done - including, by extension, other forms of laundering than clothes washing.
Used this way, laundry is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use laundry
- “I need to do a big load of laundry this weekend.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Any of various detergents designed for use in a washing machine for clothing.
Van that picks up and delivers laundry.
A hamper that holds dirty clothes to be washed or wet clothes to be dried.
Handcart for moving a load of laundry.
Personal matters that could be embarrassing if made public.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A self-service laundry (service mark Laundromat) where coin-operated washing machines are available to individual customers.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.