The dishwashing examples use a common British meaning. The painted-hands and sandwich examples use a common American meaning: washing your hands, often before food.

The idea

For British dishwashing, use wash up alone or with dishes: wash the plates up / wash up the plates. With a pronoun, say wash them up. The past is washed up. American wash up commonly refers to washing your hands.

Examples

  • We wash up together after supper.
  • Omar washed the plates up.
  • Omar washed up the plates.
  • Please wash them up before you leave.
  • I need to wash up; my hands are covered in paint.
  • The children washed up before making sandwiches.

Read-aloud uses a synthetic English voice on your device. Quality and availability vary; it does not assess pronunciation.

Watch out

Do not assume that a request to wash up means the same chore everywhere. To make the intended action explicit, say wash the dishes or wash your hands.

Try it yourself

  1. Choose the correct option. Please wash ___ before you leave. (them up / up them)

    Show answer or example answer

    them up

    Them refers to the plates and belongs between wash and up.

  2. Choose the correct option. Yesterday Omar ___ the plates up. (washed / wash)

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    washed

    Washed is the regular past form for yesterday's action.

  3. An American host says “wash up” before a meal. Choose its usual meaning in this setting. Wash your ___. (hands / plates)

    Show answer or example answer

    hands

    In the stated American pre-meal context, wash up normally means wash your hands.

Use it today

Write a British kitchen request about plates and an American request before a meal. Then rewrite both with explicit nouns so the meaning does not depend on regional usage.