bodewash

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Canadian French bois de vache (literally “cow wood”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈboʊdwɔʃ/

Noun

bodewash (uncountable)

1. (US, Canada, dialect, archaic) Dried buffalo or cow dung, sometimes used as fuel by pioneers.
   • [1877, John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms […], 4th edition, page 56:

     Bodewash. (Fr. bois de vache.) Dried cow-dung, used for fuel on the treeless plains of the Far West.]

   • 1897, Elliott Coues, Alexander Henry, New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest: The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry […], volume 1, pages 305–6:

     We therefore gathered a quantity of dry buffalo dung [bois de vache or “bodewash”] with which we made shift to keep the mosquitoes away; our provisions required no cooking.

     (Square brackets in original)

   • 1925 October 20, William Byron Mowery, “St. Gabriel Zsbyski”, in Adventure, volume 25, number 2, page 174:

     But the apostle is done now. His press-teege is mashed flatter’n a bodewash chip.

   • 1998, Canadian Geographic‎^[1], volume 118, page 29:

     Bodewash warmed many an early Manitoba settler.

Related terms

• bushwah