"to bath" vs "to bathe"

Question

Recently, I came across the verb to bathe written as bath in two English coursebooks used by Italian students. The first time I saw it, I dismissed it as a typographical error and told my private student that the verb was bathe, but when it appeared a second time, in a different textbook, I checked with an online dictionary and read the following definition with which I am most familiar.

Merriam-Webster

2. bath verb: to wash (someone) in a container filled with water
   "to give a bath to (someone)"
   "to have a bath" : to wash yourself in a bath

But in a different dictionary I read this

Oxford Dictionaries
_{^{[WITH OBJECT]}} British
1. Wash (someone) while immersing them in a bath:
how to bath a baby

1.1 _{^{[NO OBJECT]}} Wash oneself while immersed in a bath:
a)there was no hot water to bath in
b)These are the people that quite happily let me shower and bath with no hot water for 10 days, because they couldn't be bothered to fix a tap.

I told my student that it appeared that to bath was a BrEng variation and that Americans probably didn't say or use it.

However, upon doing some research I found many websites that use bath and bathe indiscriminately, with the same meaning

• How do I bath my baby? Netsmum.com (UK)
• Read about how to bath your baby NCT.uk (UK)
• In California it is illegal to bath two babies in the same bath at the same time. Stupid Laws.com (US) ^{_{[this might be a typo]}}
• But try not to bath more than once a day Raising Children.net.au (Aus)
• You can bath the baby daily, but make sure… . Marhababy (Arab Emirates)

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• It’s not necessary to bathe your newborn every day Mother & Baby.com.au (Aus)
• If it's easier for you to bathe the twins during the day... Parents.com (US)
• The first time you bathe your baby, you may feel a bit nervous. Babycenter.in (India)
• You don't need to bathe your baby every day... NHS.uk (UK)
• What’s the best way to bathe my baby? InfaCare (UK)

The above shows the transitive use of the verb bath/bathe. I presume the age of the child or adult being bathed is not a key factor, it was just easier for me to search "bath/e your baby".

The phrase in one of my student's coursebook was using the intransitive form instead.

You'll visit onsen or thermal springs where we recommend you bath communally like the Japanese.

Questions: Apparently, both forms are acceptable but is to bath AmEng or BrEng? Is it grammatical? (I just find it so odd.)

Finally, if the pronunciation of the verb to bath is /bɑːθ/ (UK) and /baTH/ (US) does this effect the pronunciation of the past form bathed? i.e. /bɑːθt/ (I don't think it does, but I'd just like a confirmation)

Answer 1

Those are not typos. Native speakers of British English do use bath as a transitive verb. Bathe on its own suggests swimming, and probably specifically seaside swimming — not even in swimming baths (which are swimming pools these days anyway).

Bathe is almost poetic: something might be bathed in light. Apart from bathe a wound, to hear it used literally rather than metaphorically is rare to the point of extinction.

In British English, the word bathed can be pronounced /beɪðd/ or /bɑːθt/ depending on its root.

Answer 2

Just some observations and Ngrams. The results on the American English corpus indicate that the verb to bath is rarely used if at all. Whereas the expression to wash the baby seems to be overtaking its counterpart to bathe

Meanwhile the British English corpus shows the slow upward trend for to bathe the baby which has been picking up momentum since the mid 1960s; but both bath and bathe are overshadowed by the expression to wash the baby

This confirms Andrew Leach's claim (not that I would ever doubt his word) that

Native speakers of British English do use bath as a transitive verb.

Answer 3

As you've discovered, it is a valid British usage. I would like to confirm that "to bath" is never used in any American dialect I've heard. If you're preparing students to speak American English, they can safely ignore that usage :)

Answer 4

No, those are just typos. I have never heard a native speaker of American English use bath as a verb. It is bathe or take/give a bath.

(Indian English, at least, and so British English I guess, they do use bath as a verb.)

Answer 5

I'm American, and I have never heard Americans say "to bath." I have always heard "to give a bath" or "to take a bath" or "to bathe." I was just watching an Australian TV show and heard them say "to bath," which sounded so strange to me I googled it and it led me here. I have also lived a year in London (granted I don't know how often I talked about bathing with people but probably not much) and I didn't notice it there. I also have been living in Spain for 2 and a half years at a very international university, and I still have never heard it (again, I don't really talk about washing bodies with too many people).

Answer 6

This is another instance where looking at it as a BrEng versus AmEng issue simply confuses the matter.

You bath by dumping yourself in a bath of some sort specifically to get clean, as in the two dictionary entries provided by the OP. There is naturally a grey area on deciding what is or isn't a bath.

You bathe by cleaning yourself someother way. At a tap, or wiping with a damp cloth, or taking a shower. You can also bathe by immersing yourself in water (usually... it can be light, sunshine, glory etc. but you can't bath in those things) just for the pleasure of it. The sea, a river, a lake, or in some circumstances a bath if you do the candles + wine + a book thing. In a related way, bathe can be used to sound refined as Mari-Lou commented, the implication being that the individual didn't need cleaning, they were just in the bath for pleasure.

Hence, whether you bath the baby or bathe the baby depends on whether you immerse it in something that you percieve to be a bath, or rinse it under a tap etc. It is a pscholinguistic issue, not a BrEng or AmEng issue. This is also why 'bathe the baby' shows a decline in Ngram - because more people have showers rather than an old-fashioned bath.

As for bath versus have/take a bath, this is an issue of formality. "I am going to bath" is more formal than "I am going to have a bath".

Answer 7

I first heard bath as a verb in Canada and assumed it was simply incorrect usage, since in the US we use the verb to bathe. While I have never heard someone from the UK use bath as a verb, it seems that it can be used as such there and in many commonwealth nations. I think it sounds stupid. As for the discussion of the use of bathe with respect to swimming pools, lakes and oceans, I can attest that in my childhood in the US I did hear this usage. I believe it is essentially dead now in the US, with the possible exception of using the term 'bathing suit' instead of 'swimsuit.'

Answer 8

To add my two cents, I'm an American with a Canadian mother. I always say "I'm going to bath the dog" rather than "bathe the dog" and my mum says that "bath" is incorrect. Where did I learn "bath the dog"? Not sure, but it sounds fine to me.

Answer 9

My 2 pence. A bath is something you clean in or used as a verb to clean. To bathe means to be in a body of water.

So you would bath your kid. But you’d bathe in the local swimming pool/river.

You wouldn’t bathe your dog, you’d bath it.

Answer 10

I wonder if the confusion here stems from Italian being a much more phonetically regular language than English, and thus the /th/ grapheme is distinctly different in "bath" vs. "bathe." The "th" is voiced in bathe but unvoiced in bath.