Clean (To)

Clean away! Scrub on, go on cleaning, etc.

To clean down. To sweep down, to swill down.

To clean out. To purify, to make tidy. Also, to win another’s money till his pocket is quite empty.

To clean up. To wash up, to put in order.

⁂ Clean, used adverbially, means entirely, wholly; as, “you have grown clean out of knowledge,” i.e. wholly beyond recognition.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.