As Clean as Seven Waters

Nell from Virginia Beach, Virginia, remembers her great-grandfather and her grandmother using the phrase as clean as seven waters to mean “spotlessly clean.” The word waters in this case is analogous to washes or rinses, so being cleaned with seven waters suggests that something will be quite clean indeed. In the biblical book of 2 Kings, Namaan, who suffers from a dreadful disease, is told to wash seven times in the muddy Jordan River, which cures him. In many religious traditions the number seven symbolizes purity and cleanliness. This is part of a complete episode.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

More from this show

Boodle on Beaver Island

A resident of Michigan’s scenic Beaver Island shares the term, boodling, which the locals use to denote the social activity of leisurely wandering the island, often with cold fermented beverages. There have been various proposed etymologies...