I was reinforcing some chairs with some new washers on the bolts holding it together. My 6-yr-old asked what those were. When I said they were called “washers”, she said, “but you’re not washing anything”.
Chris W
PS Welcome back, SDMB! You Rock!!!
You’re onto a hard one here. Even the OED says that the word is of unknown origin
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March 11, 2002, 8:15am
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Wasn’t this discussed on the Old Board, but after December 7? I distinctly remember reading about it, but it’s not in the archive.
Anyway, the Word Detective is on the case:
Washers, of course, are those little perforated disks of metal that usually go around a screw or bolt and are supposed to either help hold things together or prevent wear. All I really know about washers is that if you omit them while assembling something mechanical (as I am always tempted to do), the thing you’ve built will either leak or squeak until it falls apart, which won’t be long.
“Washer” in this mechanical sense (as opposed to meaning “one who washes”) first appeared in English around 1346. It is presumed, not surprisingly, to come from the verb “to wash,” which in turn came from a prehistoric German root, “waskan.” That root, in turn, came from an even older word, “wat,” which also gave us “water.” So it seems that the original sense of “to wash” was, quite logically, “to clean with water.”
Unfortunately, at this point, logic fails us. No one has ever come up with a convincing explanation of exactly what a metal “washer” has to do with “washing.” Personally, I suspect that it may have something to do with a washer used around a bolt attaching two moving parts. The washer’s smooth surface would allow free movement back and forth, a motion which might plausibly be compared to the scrubbing movement used in washing something. That’s just a wild guess, of course, but it works for me.
I have also seen allegations that it might be connected to French vis (screw) (characteristically ‘washer’ in French is rondelle - utterly unconnected.)
