Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Clean

Clean (klēn), a. [Compar. Cleaner; superl. Cleanest.] [OE. clene, AS. clǣne; akin to OHG. chleini pure, neat, graceful, small, G. klein small, and perh. to W. glan clean, pure, bright; all perh. from a primitive, meaning bright, shining. Cf. Glair.] 1. Free from dirt or filth; as, clean clothes.

2. Free from that which is useless or injurious; without defects; as, clean land; clean timber.

3. Free from awkwardness; not bungling; adroit; dexterous; as, a clean trick; a clean leap over a fence.

4. Free from errors and vulgarisms; as, a clean style.

5. Free from restraint or neglect; complete; entire.

When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of corners of thy field. Lev. xxiii. 22.

6. Free from moral defilement; sinless; pure.

Create in me a clean heart, O God. Ps. li. 10

That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven Tennyson.

7. (Script.) Free from ceremonial defilement.

8. Free from that which is corrupting to the morals; pure in tone; healthy. "Lothair is clean." F. Harrison.

9. Well-proportioned; shapely; as, clean limbs.

A clean bill of health, a certificate from the proper authority that a ship is free from infection. — Clean breach. See under Breach, n., 4. — To make a clean breast. See under Breast.

Clean, adv. 1. Without limitation or remainder; quite; perfectly; wholly; entirely. "Domestic broils clean overblown." Shak.

"Clean contrary." Milton.

All the people were passed clean over Jordan. Josh. iii. 17.

2. Without miscarriage; not bunglingly; dexterously. [Obs.] "Pope came off clean with Homer." Henley.

Clean (klēn), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Cleaned (klēnd); p. pr. & vb. n. Cleaning.] [See Clean, a., and cf. Cleanse.] To render clean; to free from whatever is foul, offensive, or extraneous; to purify; to cleanse.

To clean out, to exhaust; to empty; to get away from (one) all his money. [Colloq.] De Quincey.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.