How to Use washboard in a Sentence

washboard

noun
  • Sure enough, closer to the canyon the road turned to washboard.
    — Alli Harvey, Anchorage Daily News, 10 May 2018
  • But if your primary goal is to be fit and have a strong core, washboard abs don’t have to be on your radar.
    — Popular Science, 4 Sep. 2020
  • Two hours into the flight, the bumps came faster and harder, like driving over a washboard road.
    — Bucky McMahon, Popular Mechanics, 8 Sep. 2017
  • Woody Mountain Road is washboard-rough but passable by sedan.
    — Mare Czinar, azcentral, 5 July 2018
  • Channing Tatum and his washboard abs are returning back to the big screen — for the third time.
    — NBC News, 29 Nov. 2021
  • Bechdel wonders, in the frantic tone of a salesman promising washboard abs.
    — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 3 May 2021
  • Imagine a spoon sliding down a washboard in some folksy song about hillbilly divorce.
    — Joseph Goodman, al, 14 Apr. 2023
  • The museum is filled with items that pay homage to Walker, such as cotton and washboards.
    — Leondra Head, CBS News, 5 Feb. 2026
  • The first gig had Palazzo on piano, Bougerol singing and playing washboard, and a tap dancer.
    — Joe Klopus, kansascity, 4 Mar. 2018
  • Either way, the shirtless look shows off the character’s iconic washboard abs.
    — André-Naquian Wheeler, Vogue, 16 Dec. 2022
  • Remember that old rough washboard in the museum?
    — Mary Marlowe Leverette, Southern Living, 8 Aug. 2025
  • The front shocks, made to absorb washboards and uneven terrain, do a pretty good job of absorbing the road as well.
    — New Atlas, 18 Oct. 2025
  • The car glides along the road, countering pitch and lift as well as roll, and its body stays level even if the road underneath turns washboard.
    — Jonathan M. Gitlin, Ars Technica, 31 Mar. 2022
  • Make sure to go on a night when the Moondogs bluegrass band is performing with washboards and fiddles.
    — Megan Margulies, Travel + Leisure, 11 Oct. 2025
  • The stream cascades down a washboard-like slope of shale before making a sharp right turn at the base of the falls and passing below a shale cliff.
    — Peter Krouse, cleveland, 22 Nov. 2022
  • Then a washboard on which a woman had been scrubbing laundry after rubbing it abundantly with a ball of soap.
    — Lawrence Jackson, Harper's Magazine, 10 July 2023
  • Expect some washboard sections.
    — Graham Averill, Outside, 23 Feb. 2026
  • Once all the nitrogen ice was gone, this material would pile up to create the washboard terrain.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 17 Nov. 2018
  • Gay sat in my rental car and led me the rest of the way, over washboard roads that turned into something like a dry riverbed, clotted with boulders and jagged rock.
    — Jennifer Percy, New York Times, 18 Jan. 2018
  • The roads in the monument range from smooth laterite to choppy dirt washboard, and even some passages of rubble and sand.
    — Aaron Gulley, Outside Online, 28 Mar. 2018
  • The patented washboard-in-a-bag technology helps rub stains out of clothes in 1-2 minutes.
    — Sophie Dodd, Travel + Leisure, 27 Jan. 2023
  • The pic, which went up on Sunday, shows Lopez wearing a skimpy white bikini with her washboard abs on full display.
    — Christina Oehler, Health.com, 12 Aug. 2019
  • Who knew that Noah Beck had an extensive skincare collection to match his washboard abs?
    — Seventeen Editors, Seventeen, 7 June 2022
  • The chassis tuning is dialed in to the right side of sporty, and the ride remained civil, even when our daily errands took us over washboard roads.
    — Annie White, Car and Driver, 27 Jan. 2020
  • But where some see character, others see a dirty track, as rutted as an old washboard, that grows less appealing with each flat tire and trip to the carwash.
    — Jayne Orenstein, Washington Post, 7 Feb. 2024
  • The structure trembles a touch more over high-frequency washboard, and the tremors are amplified through the steering column.
    — David Beard, Car and Driver, 11 Aug. 2020
  • Because Farmer's Loop Road is becoming a washboard as permafrost melts.
    — Alaska Dispatch News, 23 Oct. 2017
  • The robocar of the future should be able to take you on a winding road with a washboard surface, and not even produce ripples in your drink — or in your inner ear or bones.
    — Brad Templeton, Forbes, 28 Feb. 2021
  • Furniture would be moved back and a two-person band — accordion and washboard — would be recruited to provide the music.
    — Chris Wohlwend, New York Times, 28 Mar. 2017
  • All were filled with Chenier’s murmuring accordion, the rustle of a washboard player and slinky grooves.
    — Kevin McKeough, Chicago Tribune, 7 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'washboard.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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