bathe
v.to wash yourself or someone else in a bath. It can also mean to swim in a river or the sea for fun.
v.to wash by immersion in water; to swim or spend time in a body of water for pleasure.
“I bathe the baby every evening before bed.”
“During the hot summer months, many locals bathe in the cool waters of the nearby lake to escape the heat.”
“The ritual required the participants to bathe in the sacred spring before entering the temple grounds, symbolizing a spiritual cleansing of the soul.”
The verb is transitive when washing someone else and intransitive when swimming or washing oneself.
In American English, 'bath' is the noun and 'bathe' is the verb. In British English, 'bath' can be a verb, but 'bathe' is the standard form for swimming or washing others.
From Middle English bathen, from Old English baþian (“to bathe, wash”), from Proto-West Germanic baþōn, from Proto-Germanic baþōną (“to bathe”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₁- (“to warm”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian boadje (“to bathe”), Dutch baden (“to bathe”), German Low German baden (“to bathe”), German baden (“to bathe”), Danish bade (“to bathe”), Swedish bada (“to bathe”), Icelandic baða (“to bathe”). More at bath. Compare also bask.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.