lavatura

Lavatura is an Italian noun meaning the act or result of washing. It derives from lavare, to wash, with the suffix -tura, and is attested in historical and modern Italian. The term can be used in several contexts, sometimes in more formal or specialized registers than the everyday word for washing.

In everyday use, lavatura can refer to the process of washing clothes or other items, though lavaggio is more common in contemporary prose. It can also denote the cleaning of surfaces or objects, for example in phrases such as the lavatura delle facciate, though lavaggio or pulizia are often preferred in current usage.

In art, lavatura describes a wash technique: a thin, diluted layer of pigment applied to a surface to establish tonal values and atmospheric effects. This sense spans drawing, watercolor, and painting practices, and is related to the English term “wash.”

In medical or historical contexts, lavatura may denote irrigation or cleansing procedures, such as wound lavature, especially in older texts. In modern Italian, lavaggio or irrigazione are more common terms in clinical language.

Overall, lavatura carries a general sense of washing across domains, with a specialized meaning in art referring to a tonal wash, and more formal or historical uses in other fields.