View synonyms for cleaning

cleaning

[ klee-ning ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

an act or instance of making clean:
Give the house a good cleaning.
Slang. an overwhelming or complete defeat, financial loss, or failure:
Our team took a cleaning in yesterday's game.
Informal. killing ( def 3 ).

First recorded in 1655–75; clean + -ing ¹

One day he and some of his roommates were cleaning their room and one of the guys threw the dustpan out into the hall.

Nothing much to use in cleaning up the baby and his mother after the birth, no place to dispose of the placenta.

It also means not having to stress about cleaning out your DVR.

We coo over how cute our cat is and minimize the drudgery of cleaning the litter box.

After cleaning up the copious amount of blood on my body in a bathroom, I found my clothing and got dressed.

They ranged from moving trunks to cleaning cisterns, and, by grace of all of them, Sim was doing very well.

They require frequent cleaning with a long wire and a bit of tow, and in some large towns there are professional pipe-cleaners.

While his mother was cleaning the fish, Alila made a fire and cut the bamboos at every joint.

I finished cleaning out my desk and took a wastebasket full of papers to the back shop.

You save all the dreadful labor of cleaning up the house the next day, as well as that of preparation.

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