sanewash

English

Etymology

sane +‎ -wash

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /seɪnwɒʃ/
• Rhymes: -eɪnwɒʃ

Verb

sanewash (third-person singular simple present sanewashes, present participle sanewashing, simple past and past participle sanewashed)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To restate one’s perspective to seem more palatable or acceptable.
   • 2021 September 22, Jonathan Chait, “What Jonathan Franzen and the Left Get Wrong About Free Speech”, in Intelligencer‎^[1], retrieved 2024-09-07:

     You can try to sanewash these claims as merely urging researchers to examine their own biases and try to include the perspectives of people outside the research community. But that would require a willful misreading of a document that all but declares research has to affirm a left-wing perspective.