Today’s Words That Work: Ablution

Ablution  (uh-BLOO-shun) — from the Latin for “to wash away” — is a cleansing of the body (or part of the body), especially as part of a religious ritual. In its plural form, the word is often used (with humorous intent) to describe the act of bathing in an overly formal way.

Example (as used by Rebecca Mead in The New Yorker): “As a general principle, Lena Dunham does not believe I removing anything that she has posted to the Internet; but, after she received a million and a half hits on YouTube for a video that showed her stripping down to a bikini, climbing into a fountain… and performing her ablutions, she reconsidered the value of having personal boundaries.”