cleaning (up)

verb

present participle of clean (up)
1
as in tidying (up)
to make a place neat and orderly by removing extraneous stuff you're expected to clean up after you use the workroom

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in censoring
to remove objectionable parts from cleaned up the rock star's interview before publishing it in the newspaper

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in eradicating
to destroy all traces of hurriedly cleaned up the mess that they had created in the kitchen

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for cleaning (up)
  1. picking up
  2. censoring
  3. eradicating
  4. shortening
  5. erasing
  6. wiping out
  7. abolishing
  8. blotting out
Verb
  • The production ultimately ran Off-Broadway for three years, picking up seven major awards along the way, including the Lucille Lortel and Off-Broadway Alliance awards for Best New Musical.
    — Dave Quinn, PEOPLE, 28 Aug. 2026
  • The couple were seen picking up coffees at Present & Correct and visiting IDEA Books in Soho.
    — Anna Cafolla, Vogue, 22 Aug. 2026
Definition of picking up
Verb
  • Aguirre’s interviews are carefully edited with bleeps, censoring the ‘cabr—s’, the ‘hijos de p—s’ and ‘carambas’.
    — Colin Millar, New York Times, 4 July 2026
  • Vance asserted that the 2020 election was rigged due to tech companies censoring information.
    — Britta Miller, The Washington Examiner, 27 June 2026
Definition of censoring
Verb
  • The brand also claims that this sweeps away plaque rather than just blasting a hole through it, more effectively eradicating the sludgy bacteria.
    — Jenny Bailly, Allure, 1 Sep. 2026
  • Tlaib is also a prominent critic of Israel; her rhetoric has been chastised by Jewish colleagues as an antisemitic call for eradicating Jews, a charge the congresswoman and her supporters reject.
    — Anthony Man, Sun Sentinel, 13 Aug. 2026
Definition of eradicating
Verb
  • Clinical Trial Recruitment AI can accelerate clinical trial participant matching by scanning records against eligibility criteria, shortening recruitment dramatically.
    — Expert Panel®, Forbes.com, 28 Aug. 2026
  • All of this can lead to higher repair costs, not to mention shortening your vehicle’s lifespan.
    — Molly Burford, Southern Living, 22 Aug. 2026
Definition of shortening
Verb
  • But Bama followed with a 38-3 quarterfinal flop to Indiana, erasing any momentum and placing DeBoer squarely under the microscope entering a pivotal third season.
    — Edgar Thompson, The Orlando Sentinel, 28 Aug. 2026
  • The 68-year-old also lost her husband and her son, who worked at a local hydropower plant, in the flash floods that hit the region on Wednesday, erasing entire communities.
    — Sophie Tanno, CNN Money, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of erasing
Verb
  • Shares slumped 16% for a third straight session of losses, wiping out $400 billion in market cap on Monday alone.
    — Gail Krishnan, CNBC, 23 June 2026
  • The prospect of even a mini-Dust Bowl is alarming as the original disaster during the Great Depression sent dust clouds across rural America, wiping out entire communities and triggering mass migration to other parts of the country.
    — Jason Ma, Fortune, 21 June 2026
Definition of wiping out
Verb
  • Debates over abolishing or scaling back the institution, which occasionally flare up in the United Kingdom and other nations, are rare in Norway.
    — Billy Stockwell, CNN Money, 28 Aug. 2026
  • While his party debates abolishing prisons and owning grocery stores, Democratic Mayor Daniel Lurie is cleaning up his city.
    — Kate Andrews, Washington Post, 27 Aug. 2026
Definition of abolishing
Verb
  • For a few minutes at each end of that window, the moon’s edge will appear to align with that of the sun, blotting out the star’s fierce light and revealing the wispy corona off to one side.
    — Meghan Bartels, Scientific American, 6 Apr. 2026
  • From up in the space shuttle, in 1983, astronaut Sally Ride could see the pollution blotting out her Los Angeles hometown.
    — Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times, 26 Mar. 2026
Definition of blotting out
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

cleaning (out)
cleaning (up)
cleaning up one's act
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Cite this Entry

“Cleaning (up).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cleaning%20%28up%29. Accessed 1 Sep. 2026.

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