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

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

Read more on Los Angeles Times

In all three of these precise and cleanly bounded exceptions, the crucial point was essentially territorial.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Hydrogen, if generated cleanly, produces only water as a byproduct.

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Piastri's stop went cleanly, but Norris lost four seconds at his because of a problem fitting his left front wheel.

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"But perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to cleanly equate one man with the other – because Jay Kelly isn't Jay Kelly either, and that's the problem."

Read more on BBC