Clean, a. [Compar. Cleaner (; superl. Cleanest.]
Etymology: [OE. clene, AS. cl; 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, aclean trick; a clean leap over a fence.
4. Free from errors and vulgarisms; as, a clean style.
6 more senses
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. Le
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 authrity that a ship is free from infection. -- Clean breach. See under Breach, n., 4. -- To make a clean breast. See under Breast.
2 other Webster entries under this spelling
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, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Cleaned; p. pr. & vb. n. Cleaning.]
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.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for clean; he lists it under cleanse, innocent, neat, pure.
Where he writes about it:
To clean is to make clean by removing dirt, impurities, or soil of any kind. — from cleanse
Cleanse implies a worse condition to start from, and more to do, than clean. — from cleanse
That which is clean is simply free from soil or defilement of any kind. — from neat
Tidy denotes that which conforms to propriety in general; an unlaced shoe may be perfectly clean, but is not tidy. — from neat
Neat refers to that which is clean and tidy with nothing superfluous, conspicuous, or showy, as when we speak of plain but neat attire; the same idea of freedom from the superfluous appears in the phrases "a neat speech," "a neat turn," "a neat reply," etc. — from neat
A clean cut has no ragged edges; a neat stroke just does what is intended. — from neat