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Word of the Day – Tuesday, October 2nd |
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LAVE (layv) To
wash or bathe
Bathing is the immersion of the body in a fluid, usually water or an aqueous solution. It may be practised for hygiene, religious or therapeutic purposes or as a recreational activity.
Some spa facilities provide bathing in various other liquids such as chocolate or mud. There have been examples of bathing in champagne, baked beans and all manner of other substances. The intentional exposure of the body to any agent may be considered bathing, for example to sunlight (sunbathing) or wind (windbathing).
Bathing serves several purposes:
Hygiene, and the physical appearance of cleanliness Decontamination from chemical, biological, nuclear or other exposure-type hazards. Recreation Therapy (e.g. hydrotherapy), healing, rehabilitation from injury or addiction, relaxation (e.g. Blessed Rainy Day) Religious, or, less frequently, other ceremonial rites (e.g. Baptism, Mikvah) Celebration and socialization, e.g. running through fountains after winning the World Series, or jumping through a hole cut in the ice over a lake on New Year's Eve. Ensuring people are free of certain items such as weapons or other contraband: In Chicago, Russian baths were a safe meeting place for rival gang leaders. Weapons are difficult to conceal on a nearly naked body. If the meeting resulted in reconciliation, the gangs would meet upstairs for bagels, cream cheese and borscht. Many homeless shelters, and almost all prisons have an intake facility or intake process that includes a supervised shower with change of clothes to ensure that no contraband or contamination enters the facility.
Bathing is usually done in a bath (i.e. a place designed for bathing), but may also be done in places not specifically designed for the purpose, such as rooftops (sunbathing and windbathing), a lake or river.
One town known for its baths is Bath (known during ancient Roman times as Aquae Sulis), a Roman city in England famous for healing hydrothermal springs, and most recently for the Bath Spa Project consisting of a rooftop pool overlooking the city of Bath, as well as four circular clear glass steam baths. The word bath is believed to be derived from the name of the city.
While it is customary for most people to bathe daily, personal hygiene habits vary, with some people bathing more than once a day and others every few days.
In Western culture, it is typical for people to bathe in the morning before starting the activities of the day or meeting with others outside the home. Arriving at work without having showered may be seen as a sign of unprofessionalism or slovenliness. In contrast, people in East Asia customarily bathe twice a day especially during the evening or the night, the rationale being that after a day's work one should remove sweat and dirt, in order to be comfortable and clean, thus keeping the bed clean.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Bathing".
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