See greenwash in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for greenwash meaning in English (8.8kB)
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "green",
"3": "whitewash",
"gloss1": "environmentally friendly"
},
"expansion": "Blend of green (“environmentally friendly”) + whitewash",
"name": "blend"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "green",
"3": "wash"
},
"expansion": "green + -wash",
"name": "suffix"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "Jay Westerveld",
"in": "1986",
"nocap": "1",
"nocat": "1"
},
"expansion": "coined by Jay Westerveld in 1986",
"name": "coin"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Blend of green (“environmentally friendly”) + whitewash (or green + -wash), coined by Jay Westerveld in 1986.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "greenwashes",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "greenwash (plural greenwashes)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "47 53",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English blends",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "45 55",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2010, Meegan Jones, Sustainable Event Management: A Practical Guide, page 38",
"text": "People can be cynical about companies hiding behind green ideals, their radars finely tuned to detect a greenwash.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2020 November 9, Damian Carrington, “‘Hypocrites and greenwash’: Greta Thunberg blasts leaders over climate crisis”, in the Guardian, retrieved 2020-11-09",
"text": "Greta Thunberg has blasted politicians as hypocrites and international climate summits as empty words and greenwash.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A false or misleading picture of environmental friendliness used to conceal or obscure damaging activities."
],
"id": "en-greenwash-en-noun-SLmjPxWA",
"links": [
[
"false",
"false"
],
[
"misleading",
"misleading"
],
[
"picture",
"picture"
],
[
"environmental",
"environmental"
],
[
"friendliness",
"friendliness"
],
[
"conceal",
"conceal"
],
[
"obscure",
"obscure"
],
[
"damaging",
"damaging"
],
[
"activities",
"activities"
]
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "greenwashing"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "漂綠"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "piǎolǜ",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "漂绿"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "grønvaskning"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "viherpesu"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "écoblanchiment"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "gurīnwosshingu",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "グリーンウォッシング"
},
{
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"roman": "geurinwosing",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "그린워싱"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "lavado verde"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "lavado verde de imagen"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "greenwashing"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "grönmålning"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈɡɹiːnwɒʃ/"
},
{
"audio": "en-au-greenwash.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/35/En-au-greenwash.ogg/En-au-greenwash.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/En-au-greenwash.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "greenwash"
}
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "green",
"3": "whitewash",
"gloss1": "environmentally friendly"
},
"expansion": "Blend of green (“environmentally friendly”) + whitewash",
"name": "blend"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "green",
"3": "wash"
},
"expansion": "green + -wash",
"name": "suffix"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "Jay Westerveld",
"in": "1986",
"nocap": "1",
"nocat": "1"
},
"expansion": "coined by Jay Westerveld in 1986",
"name": "coin"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Blend of green (“environmentally friendly”) + whitewash (or green + -wash), coined by Jay Westerveld in 1986.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "greenwashes",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "greenwashing",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "greenwashed",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "greenwashed",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "greenwash (third-person singular simple present greenwashes, present participle greenwashing, simple past and past participle greenwashed)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "47 53",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English blends",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "45 55",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "33 67",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"parents": [
"Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "40 60",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms suffixed with -wash",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2011, Elaine Wellin, Kristen Seraphin, Project Censored, Censored 2012: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2010-11, Health and the Environment",
"text": "But what happens more often is that media “greenwashes” dirty energy sources (coal, gas, nuclear power) as “clean”—a particularly dangerous notion because it belies the threat they pose to our planet and human health.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2016 August 20, Bruce Watson, “The troubling evolution of corporate greenwashing”, in The Guardian",
"text": "The commercials were very effective – in 1990, they won an Effie advertising award, and subsequently became a case study at Harvard Business school. They also became notorious among environmentalists, who have proclaimed them the gold standard of greenwashing – the corporate practice of making diverting sustainability claims to cover a questionable environmental record.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023, WWF—Hong Kong, “Submission on Product Eco-responsibility (Amendment) Bill 2023 (LC Paper No. CB(1)398/2023(09))”, in Documents of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, page 2",
"text": "WWF recommends including the following Clauses in the Bill to avoid potential loopholes: […] Provide clear and comprehensive definitions of “disposable” and “single-use” to avoid greenwashing and false claims for products designed to be disposable but falsely marketed otherwise to circumvent the ban.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To disseminate such information about (something). Most often used to tout technologies, products, or ways of doing things that seem environmentally friendly but are actually not."
],
"id": "en-greenwash-en-verb-cEjDCyJl",
"links": [
[
"disseminate",
"disseminate"
],
[
"information",
"information"
]
],
"related": [
{
"word": "green tape"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "漂綠"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "piǎolǜ",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "漂绿"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "grønvaske"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "viherpestä"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"note": "(dezinformációval) zöldnek/környezettudatosnak állít be",
"sense": "to disseminate such information"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"note": "zöld/környezettudatos látszatot kelt (ve dezinformál)",
"sense": "to disseminate such information"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "zöldnek tüntet fel / álcáz"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "grönmåla"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈɡɹiːnwɒʃ/"
},
{
"audio": "en-au-greenwash.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/35/En-au-greenwash.ogg/En-au-greenwash.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/En-au-greenwash.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "greenwash"
}
{
"categories": [
"English 2-syllable words",
"English adjective-noun compound nouns",
"English blends",
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"English lemmas",
"English nouns",
"English terms suffixed with -wash",
"English terms with IPA pronunciation",
"English terms with audio links",
"English verbs"
],
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "green",
"3": "whitewash",
"gloss1": "environmentally friendly"
},
"expansion": "Blend of green (“environmentally friendly”) + whitewash",
"name": "blend"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "green",
"3": "wash"
},
"expansion": "green + -wash",
"name": "suffix"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "Jay Westerveld",
"in": "1986",
"nocap": "1",
"nocat": "1"
},
"expansion": "coined by Jay Westerveld in 1986",
"name": "coin"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Blend of green (“environmentally friendly”) + whitewash (or green + -wash), coined by Jay Westerveld in 1986.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "greenwashes",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "greenwash (plural greenwashes)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2010, Meegan Jones, Sustainable Event Management: A Practical Guide, page 38",
"text": "People can be cynical about companies hiding behind green ideals, their radars finely tuned to detect a greenwash.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2020 November 9, Damian Carrington, “‘Hypocrites and greenwash’: Greta Thunberg blasts leaders over climate crisis”, in the Guardian, retrieved 2020-11-09",
"text": "Greta Thunberg has blasted politicians as hypocrites and international climate summits as empty words and greenwash.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A false or misleading picture of environmental friendliness used to conceal or obscure damaging activities."
],
"links": [
[
"false",
"false"
],
[
"misleading",
"misleading"
],
[
"picture",
"picture"
],
[
"environmental",
"environmental"
],
[
"friendliness",
"friendliness"
],
[
"conceal",
"conceal"
],
[
"obscure",
"obscure"
],
[
"damaging",
"damaging"
],
[
"activities",
"activities"
]
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "greenwashing"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈɡɹiːnwɒʃ/"
},
{
"audio": "en-au-greenwash.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/35/En-au-greenwash.ogg/En-au-greenwash.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/En-au-greenwash.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "漂綠"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "piǎolǜ",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "漂绿"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "grønvaskning"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "viherpesu"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "écoblanchiment"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "gurīnwosshingu",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "グリーンウォッシング"
},
{
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"roman": "geurinwosing",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "그린워싱"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "lavado verde"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "lavado verde de imagen"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"word": "greenwashing"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "misleading picture of environmental friendliness",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "grönmålning"
}
],
"word": "greenwash"
}
{
"categories": [
"English 2-syllable words",
"English adjective-noun compound nouns",
"English blends",
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"English lemmas",
"English nouns",
"English terms suffixed with -wash",
"English terms with IPA pronunciation",
"English terms with audio links",
"English verbs"
],
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "green",
"3": "whitewash",
"gloss1": "environmentally friendly"
},
"expansion": "Blend of green (“environmentally friendly”) + whitewash",
"name": "blend"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "green",
"3": "wash"
},
"expansion": "green + -wash",
"name": "suffix"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "Jay Westerveld",
"in": "1986",
"nocap": "1",
"nocat": "1"
},
"expansion": "coined by Jay Westerveld in 1986",
"name": "coin"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Blend of green (“environmentally friendly”) + whitewash (or green + -wash), coined by Jay Westerveld in 1986.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "greenwashes",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "greenwashing",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "greenwashed",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "greenwashed",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "greenwash (third-person singular simple present greenwashes, present participle greenwashing, simple past and past participle greenwashed)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "green tape"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2011, Elaine Wellin, Kristen Seraphin, Project Censored, Censored 2012: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2010-11, Health and the Environment",
"text": "But what happens more often is that media “greenwashes” dirty energy sources (coal, gas, nuclear power) as “clean”—a particularly dangerous notion because it belies the threat they pose to our planet and human health.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2016 August 20, Bruce Watson, “The troubling evolution of corporate greenwashing”, in The Guardian",
"text": "The commercials were very effective – in 1990, they won an Effie advertising award, and subsequently became a case study at Harvard Business school. They also became notorious among environmentalists, who have proclaimed them the gold standard of greenwashing – the corporate practice of making diverting sustainability claims to cover a questionable environmental record.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023, WWF—Hong Kong, “Submission on Product Eco-responsibility (Amendment) Bill 2023 (LC Paper No. CB(1)398/2023(09))”, in Documents of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, page 2",
"text": "WWF recommends including the following Clauses in the Bill to avoid potential loopholes: […] Provide clear and comprehensive definitions of “disposable” and “single-use” to avoid greenwashing and false claims for products designed to be disposable but falsely marketed otherwise to circumvent the ban.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To disseminate such information about (something). Most often used to tout technologies, products, or ways of doing things that seem environmentally friendly but are actually not."
],
"links": [
[
"disseminate",
"disseminate"
],
[
"information",
"information"
]
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈɡɹiːnwɒʃ/"
},
{
"audio": "en-au-greenwash.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/35/En-au-greenwash.ogg/En-au-greenwash.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/En-au-greenwash.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "漂綠"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "piǎolǜ",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "漂绿"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "grønvaske"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "viherpestä"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"note": "(dezinformációval) zöldnek/környezettudatosnak állít be",
"sense": "to disseminate such information"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"note": "zöld/környezettudatos látszatot kelt (ve dezinformál)",
"sense": "to disseminate such information"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "zöldnek tüntet fel / álcáz"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "to disseminate such information",
"word": "grönmåla"
}
],
"word": "greenwash"
}
{
"called_from": "translations/609-20230504",
"msg": "Translation too long compared to word, so it is skipped",
"path": [
"greenwash"
],
"section": "English",
"subsection": "verb",
"title": "greenwash",
"trace": ""
}
{
"called_from": "translations/609-20230504",
"msg": "Translation too long compared to word, so it is skipped",
"path": [
"greenwash"
],
"section": "English",
"subsection": "verb",
"title": "greenwash",
"trace": ""
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.