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PlainSpell

clean

/kliːn/adjective, noun, verb, adverb

clean is spelled C-L-E-A-N. The wrong spelling people search most is cleen: about 70 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 135 of all searches for the word. Clean is an adjective meaning “Free of dirt, filth, or impurities (extraneous matter); not dirty, filthy, or soiled”.

How many letters and syllables are in clean?

Letters5: C-L-E-A-N
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing93 times per million words; the 1,144th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, cleen, about 70 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How do you spell clean?

Clean is spelled C-L-E-A-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 136 of the searches for clean in either form.

cleanthe right spelling9,450 searches a month
cleene in place of a70 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is clean?

Clean appears 93 times per million words in written English, the 1,144th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce clean?

  • UK /kliːn/
  • UK [kʰl̥iːn]
  • US /kliːn/

Clean has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-clean.ogg, En-us-clean.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with clean?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as clean from its last stressed vowel (/in/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: lance.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of clean

  • cleaner comparative
  • cleanest superlative
  • clane
  • cleans plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • cleaning participle, present
  • cleaned participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does clean mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Free of dirt, filth, or impurities (extraneous matter); not dirty, filthy, or soiled.

    Are these dishes clean? Your room is finally clean! For a baby, happiness is a full bottle and a clean diaper.

  2. 2

    Of metal, having relatively few impurities.

    clean steel

  3. 3

    slangNot muscular due to steroid use.

    I don't think he's clean, look at those traps.

  4. 4

    Free of contamination, (unwanted) germs, infection, or disease.

    Insert a clean swab into your nose.

  5. 5

    Devoid of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

    I want to make sure my fiancé is clean before we are married.

  6. 6

    slangOf a victory or performance: without any blemishes such as submission holds, disqualification, interference, etc.

    Our team won, but it wasn't clean.

  7. 7

    Of a route, ascended without falling.

  8. 8

    Free from that which is useless or injurious; without defects.

    clean land

noun

  1. 1

    A removal of dirt.

    This place needs a clean.

  2. 2

    The first part of the event clean and jerk in which the weight is brought from the ground to the shoulders.

  3. 3

    Of heavy metal, clear vocals, contrasted with death growls and screams.

verb

  1. 1

    To remove dirt from a place or object.

    Can you clean the windows today?

  2. 2

    To tidy up, make a place neat.

    Clean your room right now!

  3. 3

    To make things clean in general.

    She just likes to clean. That’s why I married her.

  4. 4

    To remove equipment from a climbing route after it was previously lead climbed.

  5. 5

    To remove unnecessary files, etc. from (a directory, etc.).

  6. 6

    To brush the ice lightly in front of a moving rock to remove any debris and ensure a correct line; less vigorous than a sweep.

  7. 7

    slangTo purge a raw of any blemishes caused by the scanning process such as brown tinting and poor color contrast.

  8. 8

    To lift a weight from the ground to one's shoulders.

adverb

  1. 1

    Fully and completely.

    He was stabbed clean through.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate clean?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of clean: CDA.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Clean in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpropre, net (not dirty), pur (pure, especially morally or religiously), clean (not having used mind-altering or mood-changing…), nettoyer, poutzer ((transitive) to remove dirt from a place or…)
Germansauber, rein (not dirty), clean (not having used mind-altering or mood-changing…), reinigen, säubern, putzen ((transitive) to remove dirt from a place or…)
Portugueselimpo, asseado (not dirty), puro, imaculado (pure, especially morally or religiously), limpeza, limpada (removal of dirt)
Spanishlimpio (not dirty), limpiar ((transitive) to remove dirt from a place or…), arreglar ((transitive) to tidy up)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does clean come from?

From Middle English clene, from Old English clāne, clǣne (“clean; pure; clear”), from Proto-West Germanic *klainī (“dainty, fine, small; clean”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *glēy- (“gleaming”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to gleam”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after clean