See maplewash on Wiktionary
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"etymology_text": "From maple + -wash / ˈmā-pəl-ˌwȯsh / From the Canadian maple leaf as a national emblem. Formed on the pattern of greenwash and whitewash. The commercial sense most closely parallels greenwash; the older historical and political sense also draws upon whitewash. Earliest known attestations date from 2016; the coinage is commonly, but not conclusively, attributed to Canadian writer Luke Savage.",
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"ref": "2025 December 17, Maegen Kulchar, “Queen's University helps to determine Canada's first official word of the year”, in Global The Kingston Whig Standard:",
"text": "Following a national poll, Canada’s 2025 word of the year is “maplewash,” defined as the deceptive practice of making things appear more Canadian than they actually are.",
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"ref": "2025 December 13, Mark Liberman, “Maplewashing”, in Language Log:",
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"ref": "2025 December 12, John Chew, “2025 Canadian Word of the Year is “Maplewash””, in Society for Canadian English:",
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"ref": "2025 October 19, Nicholas, “Printed Maplewash from Random Penguin “Canada””, in Quotulatiousness:",
"text": "In the latest SHuSH newsletter, Ken Whyte discusses one of the most cynical and blatant attempts to “Maplewash” US product as 100% home-grown Canadian.",
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"ref": "2025 July 11, Mike Takasaki, “66. Who's Knocking it out of the Ballpark?”, in The Plate Cleaner:",
"text": "all made in the US—often from Canadian seeds, which they use to maplewash their branding.",
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"ref": "2025 April 12, CanCon, “Explaining \"Made in Canada\" vs \"Product of Canada\" vs Everything Else”, in CanCon:",
"text": "companies can use them to “Maplewash” your grocery shopping.",
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64,
73
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26,
37
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}
],
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"word": "maplewash"
}
Download raw JSONL data for maplewash meaning in All languages combined (4.5kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-16 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (d6fca27 and 65e1673). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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