housecleaning

[ hous-klee-ning ]

noun

1. the act of cleaning cleaning a house, room, etc., and its furnishings, especially the act of cleaning cleaning thoroughly and completely.
2. the act of improving or reforming by weeding out excess or corrupt personnel or of revising methods of operation.

Word History and Origins

Origin of housecleaning¹

First recorded in 1860–65; house + cleaning

Example Sentences

No doubt several cardinals who will be most affected by a thorough curial housecleaning were thinking the same thing.

From The Daily Beast

But a wholesale housecleaning of GOP incumbents before the general election looks unlikely for now.

From The Daily Beast

A magic housecleaning as if Mary Poppins were an accountant.

From The Daily Beast

The party doesn't need a facelift, it needs a housecleaning.

From The Daily Beast

Behind the kitchen door usually, but with the house all torn up with housecleaning, I don't know where it is.

From Project Gutenberg

And it was no wonder that at the close of the Congress the Pope at once ordered a sacred housecleaning, a divine fumigation.

From Project Gutenberg

Housecleaning of any sort can hardly fail to be a time of turmoil and weariness for the housekeeper.

From Project Gutenberg

My process is just like housecleaning a room; before you clean the walls and floor you remove the furniture.

From Project Gutenberg

No frogs, toads or eels were allowed near, but in the work of daily housecleaning, the storks and the mermaids were great friends.

From Project Gutenberg