s’en laver les mains
\s‿ɑ̃ la.ve le mɛ̃\
The verdict
“s’en laver les mains” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 20
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Décliner toute responsabilité, refuser toute intervention.
Corpus desk
Index FR-s-en-laver-les-mains · s’en laver les mains · French
s’en laver les mains · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 20 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | s’en laver les mains |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \s‿ɑ̃ la.ve le mɛ̃\ |
| Letters | 20 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « s’en laver les mains » en français
Rare enough to double-check
s’en laver les mains is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \s‿ɑ̃ la.ve le mɛ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Décliner toute responsabilité, refuser toute intervention.".
s’en laver les mains doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is s’en laver les mains, spelled S-’-E-N- -L-A-V-E-R- -L-E-S- -M-A-I-N-S.
Definition
- 1Décliner toute responsabilité, refuser toute intervention.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how s’en laver les mains appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Je pouvais dire : Je m’en désintéresse ; je pouvais dire à la Compagnie : Reprenez les tarifs ouvriers, faites-les déshomologuer par M. le Préfet, moi, je m’en laverai les mains et je dirai à mes concitoyens : Ce n’est pas ma ma faute, je n’y suis pour rien.
Grâce à des méthodes d’anesthésie ultra-modernes, le cœur, les poumons, tout l’organisme avait continué de fonctionner normalement. Sans aucun doute, il avait réussi un superbe exploit technique ; les conséquences, sans aucun doute il s’en lavait les mains.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.