Why is a washer called a washer?

If it's an oil seal washer it washes before it gets dirty...

mine does, I press the stork and it washes the screen...............

Why is a table called a table and not a 'chair' or a 'proctorcopter'?

Huw

Do you a logarithmic table, London Table, or the cards on table table?

Any one of which could have been called a chair, or even a proctorcopter. As long as everyone understands what the word means, and that might mean having to put the word in a context, that is all that is important. Language is dynamic and constantly changing with new words being introduced, old words being dropped or their meaning altering with time and foreign languages having an influence, especially in areas with many imigrants. This has always been so and always will be so as long as a language has relevance.

Obviously.

Now, does anyone know why a washer is called a washer?

'cos it makes a clean contact between the two surfaces???

flat ring for sealing joints or holding nuts," 1346, generally considered an agent noun of wash (q.v.), but the sense connection is difficult, and the noun may derive instead from the ancestor of Fr. vis "screw, vise."

Can also mean to nullify , as in reduce friction.

Mrcheerful

Assuming we had taps in sinks before we began to use the more advanced mechanical things e.g. engines, then the relation in the etymologies of the words washer and water may be a little clearer.

Wash (Old English wæscan, waxan; related to Old High German wascan; see WATER)

Water (Old English wæter, of Germanic origin; compare Old Saxon watar, Old High German wazzar, Gothic wato, Old Slavonic voda; related to Greek hudor)

My reasoning is that if taps had a function to wash, they stropped the water, and contained a little thing which actually allowed the closing of the tap to stop the water; the washer, then it's similarity to modern metal ones etc. may have led to the introduction of our washers as 'washers'.

But what is the history of the tap??

Which somehow reminded me of an old newspaper headline reporting the rape of a young lady in a launderette by a mental institution escapee ....

"Nut screws washer and bolts"

Nah! Washer - the thing that goes between a nut and bolt!

'Cause you couldn't have had the 'Nut screws washer and bolts' gag without it?

Water washes over rocks easily? So a plain washer allows a nut to turn more easily up against the load?

Well yes, obviously because it cleans something or because it closes a gap, spreads a load, seals, causes a resistance or a load or prevents the loss of a pre-load. Obviously. Why else would it be called a washer? Otherwise it would be called a chair or a bird.

Huw

because if a chair was a table, you would be eating your meals where peoples asses have been.

It's because "nut screws washer and bolts" wouldn't be the same otherwise.

John

That's where you're wrong.

Huw

If used in nut type joins between pipes it keeps that water (Wassher) from coming out. It wouldn't surprise me if it started as something like a Wassher seal.

AFAIK theres as little "reason" for a washer being called washer as there is reason for me being called by my name. Its just a name. Much like hammer. I certainly cant find any details online about it.