Past tense of launder; washed and cleaned clothing, or illegally processed money to make it appear legitimate.
From Middle English launder 'one who washes,' from Old French lavandier, from Latin lavandarius. The money-laundering sense emerged in the 1920s, using the metaphor of cleaning dirty money.
Laundered perfectly illustrates how criminal language borrows domestic metaphors - just as soap removes dirt from clothes, money laundering 'cleans' illegally obtained funds, showing how we understand abstract corruption through the familiar process of washing.
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