water used for taking a bath; also appears in the phrase 'don't throw out the baby with the bathwater,' meaning don't discard something good while trying to remove something bad.
From 'bath' (from Old English 'baeth', hot water for bathing) + 'water' (from Old English 'wæter'). The compound is straightforward but became metaphorically important in the idiom.
The phrase 'don't throw the baby out with the bathwater' comes from medieval fears that newborns would be washed away—it warns against overcorrection when fixing problems.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.