What does laundered mean?
Laundered is the past tense and past participle of launder, meaning washed and cleaned, usually with the intention of removing dirt, stains, or odors. It is especially common for clothing, bedding, and household linens, as in freshly laundered shirts. The word also has a critical figurative use: to launder money or other assets is to disguise their source or make them appear legitimate. A person, reputation, or organisation may similarly be described as laundered when a favourable public image has been manufactured or carefully cleaned. These figurative uses carry a strongly negative or suspicious connotation and are often associated with crime, finance, politics, or publicity. Laundered is therefore more than a simple synonym for cleaned: its literal use describes ordinary domestic care, while its figurative uses imply concealment, refurbishment, or deliberate transformation intended to deceive or reassure observers.
Washed and cleaned; figuratively, made to appear respectable, legitimate, or free of taint.
"The laundered uniform looked crisp and professional."
The literal sense is neutral, while figurative uses generally imply deliberate concealment or refurbishment.
Past tense and past participle of launder: to wash or clean something, or to process it so that it appears legitimate or respectable.
"They laundered the donated clothing before distributing it."
This entry represents an inflected verb form rather than an independently inflected lexical item.
A word best known for hiding the origins of money can trace its figurative career to something wonderfully ordinary: putting clothes through a wash.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does laundered come from?
The word belongs to a family derived through Middle English and Old French from Latin roots associated with washing, ultimately Latin lavare, “to wash.” The development of laundering as an occupation gave rise to related forms such as laundry and laundress. In modern financial and political usage, laundering was extended metaphorically to the cleansing of money, images, and reputations.
How laundered is actually used
The literal sense is neutral and common in contexts involving clothing and household linens. The figurative senses are more critical: describing money as laundered indicates deliberate concealment of its source, while describing a person, image, or reputation as laundered suggests that it has been made to appear clean or acceptable.
Easily confused with laundered
Launder is the verb from which laundered is formed; laundered usually functions as a participle or adjective describing something that has been washed, sanitized, or made to appear legitimate.
Laundry is a noun referring to clothes to be washed or the business of washing clothes, whereas laundered describes clothes or other material that have already been washed.