cleanly

[klen-lee, kleen-lee]

adjective

cleanlier, cleanliest 

1. personally neat; careful to keep or make clean.

   The cat is by nature a cleanly animal.

2. habitually kept clean.

3. Obsolete.,  cleansing; making clean.

adverb

1. in a clean manner.

cleanly

/ ˈklɛnlɪnɪs, ˈklɛnlɪlɪ /

adverb

1. in a fair manner

2. easily or smoothly

   the screw went into the wood cleanly

adjective

1. habitually clean or neat

Other Word Forms

• cleanliness noun
• cleanlily adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of cleanly¹

before 900; Middle English clenlich ( e ), Old English clǣnlīc, equivalent to clǣne clean + -līc -ly

Example Sentences

In the bottom of the ninth in Game 7, playing second base with the infield in, Rojas cleanly fielded a grounder and threw out Isiah Kiner-Falefa by inches at home plate to save the game.

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"Our biggest challenge," Toda, another first author, explains, "was cleanly separating two kinds of signals from a single image while keeping noise low and avoiding mixing between them."

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A hit woman who has made her kill cleanly, with no blood splatter.

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"You lose the final of the biggest tournament and you don't think cleanly," she said.

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It means switching to cleanly made electricity, clean transportation, fewer beef and dairy cows and other sources of harmful gases.

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