clean-cut

[ kleen-kuht ]

adjective

1. having distinct, regular shape:

   a face with clean-cut features.

2. clearly outlined.
3. neat and wholesome:

   a polite, clean-cut young man.

4. unambiguously clear; unmistakable; clear-cut:

   The case against him is a clean-cut one.

clean-cut

adjective

1. clearly outlined; neat

   clean-cut lines of a ship

2. definite

   a clean-cut decision in boxing

Word History and Origins

Origin of clean-cut¹

First recorded in 1835–45

Example Sentences

He seems fleshless, bloodless; he might almost be a black man's parody of how a clean-cut white man moves.

From The Daily Beast

But there is a middle way from clean-cut hunkdom to looking like a militia leader who might boil a hitchhiker alive.

From The Daily Beast

There was a smattering of clean-cut sensation seekers and a few actual Hindus as well.

From The Daily Beast

He was clean cut, disciplined and a seemingly happily married father of a beautiful young baby girl.

From The Daily Beast

Declining to be named for this article, they say the abduction and rescue of the TV crew “wasn't as clean cut as stated.”

From The Daily Beast

They were fine, clean-cut, likable boys, who had come through the war with colors flying.

From Project Gutenberg

He was a clean-cut man, five-eleven in his stockings, and few men in all that country had a handsomer body.

From Project Gutenberg

His clean-cut face was quite pallid; the suppressed anger in his eyes was perhaps more difficult to meet than open fury.

From Project Gutenberg

I could see the clean-cut features of the latter, and his gestures, strongly but not flamboyantly made.

From Project Gutenberg

The hard heads that, at the beginning of a career, lay clean-cut plans of ambition are in an infinitesimal minority.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• chiseled