baby and bathwater
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From the phrase throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Noun[edit]
baby and bathwater pl (plural only)
- (idiomatic, often attributively) Used in reference to an error in which something valuable is discarded in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted.
- 2012, Michael Staudenmaier, Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization, 1969–1986, Edinburgh: AK Press, →ISBN, page 23:
- From this perspective, the limits of the radical feminist worldview seemed increasingly frustrating to the feminist radicals. In some cases, this led to a baby and bathwater sort of reaction, where even the important lessons of consciousness raising were dismissed as middle-class diversions.