Learn English – Word used to denote a glass of drunk water

word-request

Say there is a glass of water, and someone drank it (dipping their lips, i.e. not from a distance pouring water into their mouth). Now the glass of water is (somewhat) impure, containing the saliva of the person.

What is the word in English that denotes the water is impure in the sense that the water has been drunk by someone?

Best Answer

"Has backwash"

I'm not sure how widely used this term is, but on road trips as a child in New Zealand I remember our father admonishing us for poor technique in drinking straight out of a shared soda bottle, causing backwash of spit into the bottle. Wiktionary has it as the 4th definition:

The saliva, spit or food particles that have flowed back into a drink after someone has drunk from it.

I wouldn't use it in a very formal situation however. It's a step further from explicitly talking about saliva but still close enough to be a bit crass.

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