Deeper Dive: clean
Clean
, adv.
1.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. 17.
2. Without miscarriage; not bunglingly; dexterously. [Obs.] "Pope came off clean with Homer." Henley.
Clean
(klēn), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Cleaned (klēnd); p. pr. & vb. n. Cleaning.] [See Clean, a., and cf. Cleanse.] 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.
Clean
(klēn), a. [Compar. Cleaner (?); superl. Cleanest.] [OE. clene, AS. clǣne; akin to OHG. chleini pure, neat, graceful, small, G. klein small, and perh. to W. glan clean, pure, bright; all perh. from a primitive, meaning bright, shining. Cf. Glair.]
1. Free from dirt or filth; as, clean clothes.
2. Free from that which is useless or injurious; without defects; as, clean land; clean timber.
3. Free from awkwardness; not bungling; adroit; dexterous; as, a clean trick; a clean leap over a fence.
4. Free from errors and vulgarisms; as, a clean style.
5. 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.
Lev. xxiii. 22.
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.
7. (Script.) Free from ceremonial defilement.
8. Free from that which is corrupting to the morals; pure in tone; healthy. "Lothair is clean." F. Harrison.
9. Well-proportioned; shapely; as, clean limbs.
A clean bill of health, a certificate from the proper authority that a ship is free from infection. -- Clean breach. See under Breach, n., 4. -- To make a clean breast. See under Breast.
-- Webster's unabridged 1913
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