clean

Free of dirt, filth, or impurities (extraneous matter); not dirty, filthy, or soiled.

Adjective

  1. Free of dirt, filth, or impurities (extraneous matter); not dirty, filthy, or soiled.
    • Are these dishes clean? Your room is finally clean! For a baby, happiness is a full bottle and a clean diaper.
    • Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully furnished, and was very clean. There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget,...
    • Very fine, well-sorted, clean sand with no shells. - 1964, Coastal Engineering Research Center (U.S.), Technical Memorandum - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Coastal Engineering Research Center, page 69:

    1. Of metal, having relatively few impurities.

      • clean steel
  2. Free of contamination, (unwanted) germs, infection, or disease.
    • Insert a clean swab into your nose.
    • "Serious as cognitohazard." Lillihammer danced down the corridor towards them, doing little pirouettes and leaping from toe to toe. "Reuben Wirth no longer exists. Gonna have to get Forsythe to do that brain scan to...

    1. Devoid of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

      • I want to make sure my fiancé is clean before we are married.
  3. Free of imperfections, blemishes, or defects.
    • Our team won, but it wasn't clean.

    1. (sports, for example, professional wrestling, slang) Of a victory or performance: without any blemishes such as submission holds, disqualification, interference, etc.

    2. (climbing) Of a route, ascended without falling.

    3. Free from that which is useless or injurious; without defects.

      • clean land
      • clean timber

    4. In an unmarked condition; blank.

      • Put a clean sheet of paper into the printer.
  4. Free of immorality or criminality.
    • Our kids can watch this movie because it is clean.
    • Create in me a clean heart, O God. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 51:10:
    • Ah! let me knot be fool'd, sweet saints. I trust / That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven. - 1833 (date written), Alfred Tennyson, “St. Simeon Stylites”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […],...

    1. Pure, especially morally or religiously.

    2. Not using drugs or alcohol.

      • go clean
      • I've been clean this time for eight months.
      • Ten months sober, I must admit Just because you're clean, don't mean you don't miss it Ten months older, I won't give in Now that I'm clean, I'm never gonna risk it - 2014 October 27, Taylor Swift, Imogen Heap, “Clean...

    3. Free from (or showing no signs of) corrupt, unlawful, and/or sinister conduct or connections (and (of criminal, driving, etc. records) therefore without restrictions or penalties).

      • It was my dream to be a Soviet spy. The vetting process started, and I was “clean”: no Jews in either my background or my wife's, no relatives abroad, already a member of the Soviet Communist Party, high marks on exams,...
      • "If the Tramells hadn't passed away, we still wouldn't know. The background check was clean." "How can it be clean, for fuck's sake?" I knocked back the whiskey in one swallow. "Eva's mother used Monica's name,...
      • Unlike you, I’ve never caused any accidents — my record is still clean!

    4. (informal) Not in possession of weapons or contraband such as drugs.

      • I'm clean, officer. You can go ahead and search me if you want.

    5. (informal) Devoid of profanity.

  5. Free of infiltration by covert listening or recording devices (bugs), enemy spies, etc.
    • We are currently clean on OPSEC.
    • "[Are you sure the] room is clean?" "As a whistle. It's swept at irregular intervals every week." "That still leaves time to plant a bug[…]" - 1989, Gayle Rivers, The Killing House, Jove Books, →ISBN:
  6. Empty.
    • The cargo hold is clean.
    • Mister, I want to see a clean dinner plate or there'll be no dessert for you.

    Synonyms: vacant void empty empty as a pauper's purse empty as the tomb on Easter clean leer toom unfilled vacuumlike vacuous

  7. Smooth, exact, and performed well.
    • I'll need a sharper knife to make clean cuts.
    • a clean leap over a fence
    • a clean left-footed shot into the top corner of the goal
  8. That does not damage the environment (as much as some alternative).
    • clean energy
    • clean coal
    • clean tourism
  9. Allowing an uninterrupted flow over surfaces, without protrusions such as racks or landing gear.
  10. Having the undercarriage and flaps in the up position.

    Antonyms: dirty

  11. Well-proportioned; shapely.
    • clean limbs
  12. Cool or neat.
    • Wow, dude, those are some clean shoes ya got there!

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-West Germanic *klainī Old English clǣne Middle English clene English clean From Middle English clene, clane, from Old English clǣne (“clean, pure”), from Proto-West Germanic *klainī (“shining, fine, splendid, tender”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *glēy- (“gleaming”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to gleam”). Cognate with Scots clean (“absolute, pure, clear, empty”) and clene, clane (“clean”), North Frisian klien (“small”), West Frisian klien (“small”), klean (“clean”), Dutch klein (“small”), Low German kleen (“small”), German klein (“small”), Swedish klen (“weak, feeble, delicate”), Icelandic klénn (“poor, feeble, petty, snug, puny, cheesy, lame”).

Forms

cleaner cleanest

Synonyms

clean clean as a bean clean as a hound's tooth clean as a new penny clean as a new pin clean as a whistle immaculate pristine spick-and-span spotless squeaky clean stainless unsoiled unsullied

Antonyms

dirty unclean

Related

pure make clean

Derived

a new broom sweeps clean bioclean broom-clean certificate of clean criminal record cleanaholic clean as a bean clean as a hound's tooth clean as a new penny clean as a new pin clean as a whistle clean bill of health clean bomb clean bowl clean break clean bulk clean chit clean coal clean code clean coder clean copy clean eating clean electricity clean fashion clean feed

Adverb

  1. Fully and completely.
    • He was stabbed clean through.
    • You must be clean mad.
    • The wave went clean over the old lighthouse.

Forms

cleaner cleanest

Derived

clean-shaven the arse has gone clean out of 'er the arse is clean out of 'er

Noun

  1. A removal of dirt.
    • This place needs a clean.
    • Give the pan a thorough clean.
  2. The first part of the event clean and jerk in which the weight is brought from the ground to the shoulders.
  3. Of heavy metal, clear vocals, contrasted with death growls and screams.
    • When people complained the songs were too hard, Kyle's clean vocals could bail out the band. Adding cleans would set off a chain reaction though - Kyle's crisp, clear presence could be seen as "betraying" the raw...
    • Vocalist Kaan is impeccable in his performance engaging with the crowd and soulfully executing both searing screams and hauntingly melodic cleans. - 2016, Jay Shields, “Tech Fest 2016”, in Fraser Mutch, editor, Elite...
    • The band's more recent output has seen a small amount of cleans find their way in, but for the most part, the Pennsylvania boys rely on the kind of devastating vocal delivery that can be heard on monumental career...

Forms

cleans

Derived

clean-up deep clean misclean power clean spring clean

Verb

  1. To remove dirt from a place or object.
    • Can you clean the windows today?
  2. To tidy up, make a place neat.
    • Clean your room right now!
  3. To remove equipment from a climbing route after it was previously lead climbed.
  4. To make things clean in general.
    • She just likes to clean. That’s why I married her.
  5. To remove unnecessary files, etc. from (a directory, etc.).
  6. To brush the ice lightly in front of a moving rock to remove any debris and ensure a correct line; less vigorous than a sweep.
  7. To purge a raw of any blemishes caused by the scanning process such as brown tinting and poor color contrast.
  8. Synonym of clean up.

    Synonyms: clean up

  9. To remove guts and/or scales of a butchered animal.
    • The fishmonger cleaned the mackerel.
  10. To beat, to thrash; to defeat.

Forms

cleans cleaning cleaned

Related

dry-clean vacuum-clean

Derived

cleanability cleanable clean down cleaner clean off clean one's plate clean out clean someone’s clock clean up clean up after dry-clean get one's clock cleaned houseclean misclean overclean preclean rage clean reclean self-cleaning

Wikipedia

clean