clean
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]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”), Dutch klein (“small”), Low German kleen (“small”), German klein (“small”), Swedish klen (“weak, feeble, delicate”), Icelandic klénn (“poor, feeble, petty, snug, puny, cheesy, lame”).
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /kliːn/, [kʰl̥iːn]
Audio (UK): (file) - (General American) enPR: klēn, IPA(key): /klin/, [kʰl̥ĩn]
Audio (US): (file) - (Ireland, dated) enPR: klān, IPA(key): /kleːn/, [kʰl̥eːn]
- Rhymes: -iːn
Adjective
[edit]clean (comparative cleaner, superlative cleanest)
- (physical) Free of dirt or impurities.
- 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.
- 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC:
- 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, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.
- In an unmarked condition.
- Put a clean sheet of paper into the printer.
- (aerodynamics) Allowing an uninterrupted flow over surfaces, without protrusions such as racks or landing gear.
- (aviation) Having the undercarriage and flaps in the up position.
- Antonym: dirty
- Empty.
- The cargo hold is clean.
- Mister, I want to see a clean dinner plate or there'll be no dessert for you.
- (of metal) Having relatively few impurities.
- clean steel
- Not dirty, filthy, or soiled.
- (behavioural) Free of immorality or criminality.
- Pure, especially morally or religiously.
- Our kids can watch this movie because it is clean.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 51:10:
- Create in me a clean heart, O God.
- 1833 (date written), Alfred Tennyson, “St. Simeon Stylites”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 63:
- Ah! let me knot be fool'd, sweet saints. I trust / That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven.
- 1914, Parliamentary Debates, volume 168, New Zealand, page 195:
- I do not think there is any member in this House who will not agree that that is the clean thing to do. Any member sitting on the Government benches will admit in private that that is the proper course for members who break faith.
- Not having used drugs or alcohol.
- I've been clean this time for eight months.
- (of criminal, driving, etc. records) Without restrictions or penalties, or someone having such a record.
- Unlike you, I’ve never caused any accidents — my record is still clean!
- (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.
- (informal) Devoid of profanity.
- Pure, especially morally or religiously.
- Smooth, exact, and performed well.
- I'll need a sharper knife to make clean cuts.
- a clean leap over a fence
- (obsolete) Total; utter. (still in "clean sweep")
- 1655, James Howell, “To the Right Honourable the Earl of Clare”, in Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ. Familiar Letters Domestic and Forren. […], 3rd edition, volume (please specify the page), London: […] Humphrey Mos[e]ley, […], →OCLC:
- Moreover, I find there are some Words now in French which are turned to a Countersense […] Cocu is taken for one whose Wife is light, and hath made him a passive Cuckold; whereas clean contrary, Cocu, which is the Cuckow, doth use to lay her Eggs in another Bird's Nest.
- (informal) Cool or neat.
- Wow, dude, those are some clean shoes ya got there!
- (health, of a person) Free of infection or disease.
- 2023 October 14, HarryBlank, “Face Time”, in SCP Foundation[1], archived from the original on 23 May 2024:
- "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 make sure I'm clean, but otherwise yeah. Poof."
- (health) Devoid of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
- I want to make sure my fiancé is clean before we are married.
- That does not damage the environment.
- clean energy
- clean coal
- Free from that which is useless or injurious; without defects.
- clean land
- clean timber
- Free from restraint or neglect; complete; entire.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Leviticus 23:22:
- When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of corners of thy field.
- Well-proportioned; shapely.
- clean limbs
- (climbing, of a route) Ascended without falling.
Synonyms
[edit]- (not dirty): Thesaurus:clean
Antonyms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]- a new broom sweeps clean
- bioclean
- 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 bowl
- clean break
- clean bulk
- clean chit
- clean coal
- clean code
- clean coder
- clean copy
- clean eating
- clean electricity
- clean feed
- clean float
- cleanfluencer
- clean freak
- clean girl
- clean-handed
- clean hands
- clean house
- cleanish
- clean language
- clean-limbed
- clean-limbed
- clean link
- clean-living
- cleanly
- clean meat
- clean money
- cleanness
- clean potato
- clean power
- clean price
- clean room
- cleanroom
- clean-shaved
- cleanshaven
- clean sheet
- clean shell
- cleanskin
- clean skin
- clean slate
- cleantech
- clean teen
- cleanth
- clean-timbered
- clean URL
- come clean
- eye-clean
- hyperclean
- keep one's nose clean
- lick clean
- lick clean
- make a clean breast
- new brooms sweep clean
- nonclean
- overclean
- show a clean pair of heels
- squeaky clean
- superclean, super-clean
- ultraclean
- unclean
- wipe the slate clean
Translations
[edit]
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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Noun
[edit]clean (plural cleans)
- Removal of dirt.
- This place needs a clean.
- (weightlifting) The first part of the event clean and jerk in which the weight is brought from the ground to the shoulders.
- (in the plural, metal music) Clear vocals, contrasted with death growls and screams.
- 2014, T/James Reagan, Leeds House, Amazon Digital Services LLC, →ISBN, page 314:
- 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 assault that Mike inflicts on the fans with his screams and growls.
- 2016, Jay Shields, “Tech Fest 2016”, in Fraser Mutch, editor, Elite Online Mag, number 78, page 155:
- Vocalist Kaan is impeccable in his performance engaging with the crowd and soulfully executing both searing screams and hauntingly melodic cleans.
- 2023 April 17, Jake Richardson, “10 Best Clean Singers in Metalcore”, in Loudwire[2], archived from the original on 17 August 2024:
- 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 highlights such as "Marianas Trench."
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]
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Verb
[edit]clean (third-person singular simple present cleans, present participle cleaning, simple past and past participle cleaned)
- (transitive) To remove dirt from a place or object.
- Can you clean the windows today?
- (transitive) To tidy up, make a place neat.
- Clean your room right now!
- (transitive, climbing) To remove equipment from a climbing route after it was previously lead climbed.
- (intransitive) To make things clean in general.
- She just likes to clean. That’s why I married her.
- (transitive, computing) To remove unnecessary files, etc. from (a directory, etc.).
- (intransitive, curling) 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.
- (manga fandom slang) To purge a raw of any blemishes caused by the scanning process such as brown tinting and poor color contrast.
- (video games) Synonym of clean up
- To remove guts and/or scales of a butchered animal.
Synonyms
[edit]- See also Thesaurus:make clean
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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Adverb
[edit]clean (comparative cleaner, superlative cleanest)
- Fully and completely.
- He was stabbed clean through.
- You must be clean mad.
- 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:
- So, since all my pains in his direction were clean thrown away, there was nothing left for me but to scurry back to Marjorie, — so I scurried, and I found the house empty, no one there, and Marjorie gone.
- 1951 October, William B. Stocks, “A Few Miles from Huddersfield”, in Railway Magazine, page 701:
- A feat sometimes achieved by outstanding local athletes is to throw a cricket ball clean over the top [of the viaduct].
- 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
- The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when modish taste was just due to go clean out of fashion for the best part of the next hundred years.
- (professional wrestling slang) To defeat an opponent without using submission holds, disqualification, interference, etc. (i.e. by pinfall).
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]Anagrams
[edit]Danish
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Adjective
[edit]clean (neuter clean, plural and definite singular attributive clean)
- drugfree, not having used recreational drugs
German
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from English clean. Doublet of klein.
Pronunciation
[edit]Adjective
[edit]clean (strong nominative masculine singular cleaner, comparative cleaner, superlative am cleansten)
- (colloquial) clean, drugfree
- 1984 March 26, “99 Luftballons und das Chaos der Gefühle”, in Der Spiegel[3], number 13:
- Nenas Image ist so clean, daß ein paar Zeitschriften nun nach dunklen Punkten suchen und sie erfinden, weil nichts zu finden ist.
- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
Declension
[edit]number & gender | singular | plural | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
masculine | feminine | neuter | |||
predicative | er ist clean | sie ist clean | es ist clean | sie sind clean | |
strong declension (without article) |
nominative | cleaner | cleane | cleanes | cleane |
genitive | cleanen | cleaner | cleanen | cleaner | |
dative | cleanem | cleaner | cleanem | cleanen | |
accusative | cleanen | cleane | cleanes | cleane | |
weak declension (with definite article) |
nominative | der cleane | die cleane | das cleane | die cleanen |
genitive | des cleanen | der cleanen | des cleanen | der cleanen | |
dative | dem cleanen | der cleanen | dem cleanen | den cleanen | |
accusative | den cleanen | die cleane | das cleane | die cleanen | |
mixed declension (with indefinite article) |
nominative | ein cleaner | eine cleane | ein cleanes | (keine) cleanen |
genitive | eines cleanen | einer cleanen | eines cleanen | (keiner) cleanen | |
dative | einem cleanen | einer cleanen | einem cleanen | (keinen) cleanen | |
accusative | einen cleanen | eine cleane | ein cleanes | (keine) cleanen |
number & gender | singular | plural | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
masculine | feminine | neuter | |||
predicative | er ist cleaner | sie ist cleaner | es ist cleaner | sie sind cleaner | |
strong declension (without article) |
nominative | cleanerer | cleanere | cleaneres | cleanere |
genitive | cleaneren | cleanerer | cleaneren | cleanerer | |
dative | cleanerem | cleanerer | cleanerem | cleaneren | |
accusative | cleaneren | cleanere | cleaneres | cleanere | |
weak declension (with definite article) |
nominative | der cleanere | die cleanere | das cleanere | die cleaneren |
genitive | des cleaneren | der cleaneren | des cleaneren | der cleaneren | |
dative | dem cleaneren | der cleaneren | dem cleaneren | den cleaneren | |
accusative | den cleaneren | die cleanere | das cleanere | die cleaneren | |
mixed declension (with indefinite article) |
nominative | ein cleanerer | eine cleanere | ein cleaneres | (keine) cleaneren |
genitive | eines cleaneren | einer cleaneren | eines cleaneren | (keiner) cleaneren | |
dative | einem cleaneren | einer cleaneren | einem cleaneren | (keinen) cleaneren | |
accusative | einen cleaneren | eine cleanere | ein cleaneres | (keine) cleaneren |
Further reading
[edit]Manx
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]clean m (genitive singular clean, plural cleanyn)
- cradle (oscillating bed for a baby)
- Ta dooinney ny ghaa leaystey clean nagh vel bentyn da hene.
- There’s a man or two rocking the cradle of another man’s child.
- cot
- cage (of birds)
- pannier
Mutation
[edit]Manx mutation | ||
---|---|---|
Radical | Lenition | Eclipsis |
clean | chlean | glean |
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs. |
Romanian
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Bulgarian клян (kljan), from Proto-Slavic *klěnь.
Noun
[edit]clean m (plural cleni)
Declension
[edit]- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/iːn
- Rhymes:English/iːn/1 syllable
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- en:Aviation
- English informal terms
- English terms with obsolete senses
- en:Climbing
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Weightlifting
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- en:Computing
- en:Curling
- en:Japanese fiction
- English fandom slang
- en:Video games
- English adverbs
- en:Professional wrestling
- English slang
- en:Hygiene
- Danish terms borrowed from English
- Danish terms derived from English
- Danish lemmas
- Danish adjectives
- Danish terms spelled with C
- German terms borrowed from English
- German terms derived from English
- German doublets
- German terms with IPA pronunciation
- German terms with audio links
- German lemmas
- German adjectives
- German colloquialisms
- German terms with quotations
- Manx terms inherited from Old Irish
- Manx terms derived from Old Irish
- Manx lemmas
- Manx nouns
- Manx masculine nouns
- Manx terms with usage examples
- Romanian terms borrowed from Bulgarian
- Romanian terms derived from Bulgarian
- Romanian terms derived from Proto-Slavic
- Romanian lemmas
- Romanian nouns
- Romanian countable nouns
- Romanian masculine nouns