What does "clean" mean?
Clean: Free from that which is useless or injurious; without defects; as, clean land; clean timber.
Additional senses
- 2.Free from awkwardness; not bungling; adroit; dexterous; as, aclean trick; a clean leap over a fence.
- 3.Free from errors and vulgarisms; as, a clean style.
- 4.Free from restraint or neglect; complete; entire. When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of corners of thy field. Le 6. Free from moral defilement; sinless; pure. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Ps. li. 10 That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven Tennyson.
- 5.(Script.) Free from ceremonial defilement.
- 6.Free from that which is corrupting to the morals; pure in tone; healthy. "Lothair is clean." F. Harrison.
- 7.Well-proportioned; shapely; as, clean limbs. A clean bill of health, a certificate from the proper authrity that a ship is free from infection. -- Clean breach. See under Breach, n., 4. -- To make a clean breast. See under Breast.
- 8.Without limitation or remainder; quite; perfectly; wholly; entirely. "Domestic broils clean overblown." Shak. "Clean contrary." Milton. All the people were passed clean over Jordan. Josh. iii.
- 9.2. Without miscarriage; not bunglingly; dexterously. [Obs.] "Pope came off clean with Homer." Henley.
- 10.To render clean; to free from whatever is foul, offensive, or extraneous; to purify; to cleanse. To clean out, to exhaust; to empty; to get away from (one) all his money. [Colloq.] De Quincey.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
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- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00