A spin-dryer is a machine that takes most of the water out of washed clothes by whirling them around at high speed inside a drum full of small holes. The water is flung out through the holes; the clothes come out heavy-damp but no longer dripping, and you still have to hang them up.

The important thing is what it is not. It is not a tumble dryer (American: clothes dryer), which blows hot air and gives you clothes you can wear straight away. A spin-dryer uses no heat at all — only speed. In Britain in the mid-twentieth century it was often a separate little machine standing next to the washing machine: you moved the wet washing across by hand. That is the picture behind the word.

Today almost every washing machine spins by itself at the end of the cycle, so a stand-alone spin-dryer has become an unusual object — you meet it mostly in older homes, small flats, launderettes, and in the memories of older speakers. In Taiwan the older two-tub washing machines had exactly this arrangement: a wash tub on one side and a spin tub on the other. So the word is much more useful for understanding British writing and older texts than for describing your own bathroom.

The spelling wanders: 'spin-dryer', 'spin dryer' and 'spin-drier' are all found, with the hyphenated form most usual in Britain. The plainer word 'spinner' is also used for the same machine.