cleanse

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English clensen, early also clænsen,^[2][3] inherited from Old English clǣnsian (“to cleanse, purify, chasten, clear oneself”),^{[4][5][6][3][7]} from clǣne (“clean, pure”),^[4][3][8][9] which is clean.^[6][7] The Old English verb is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *klainisōn,^[6][5][10] formed with the same verb suffix as rīcsian (“to rule”) beside Old High German rīchisōn;^[5][11] Collins compares Middle Low German klēnsen.^[12] The Middle English and dialect form clansen may go back to an Old English clānsian, or it may be the usual verb with a shortened vowel.^[5] The modern spelling cleanse, from the 16th century, was assimilated to clean, but the word kept its Middle English pronunciation with a short vowel.^[5][8][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make clean, purify; to make morally clean, free from sin: in Old English, where Barnhart's first record is Cynewulf's Elene (about 750);^[8] the OED quotes it from the laws of Æthelred (cleansing the land) and King Alfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

In Old English clǣnsian already covered physical and moral cleansing, the ritual cleanness of the Mosaic law, healing from leprosy, purging the body, and clearing someone of a charge;^[5][4] the last sense lived on only in Scotland and died out around 1650.^[5] From about 1250, in The Owl and the Nightingale, it also meant to clear or rid a place of something.^[5] Cleanse was long the ordinary word for making something clean, but the verb clean, formed from the adjective in the 15th century, has taken over much of its ground,^[5][6] so that the Shorter Oxford now calls the physical sense archaic or formal.^[7] Chaucer used clensen four times and Gower once.^[13] Johnson (1755) gave the senses "to free from filth or dirt, by washing or rubbing" and "to purify from guilt".^[14] The phrase ethnic cleansing brought a new transitive sense, to clear an area of an ethnic group, recorded in English from 1946 in a translation of a Nazi document and compared by the OED with a Serbian and Croatian use from 1942;^[5] Collins lists it.^[12] The noun cleanse, for a short, strict diet meant to rid the body of toxins, is dated 1999 by Merriam-Webster.^[15] In dialect cleanse could mean to polish boots (Surrey), and in Shropshire the noun was the afterbirth (1881).^[16][5]

Timeline

• c. 750 – to make clean, purify, in Cynewulf's Elene.^[8]
• Old English – to free from sin; to cleanse ritually; to heal from leprosy; to acquit (obsolete by 1650).^[5]
• c. 1200 – Middle English cleansen, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[8]
• a. 1250 – to clear or rid of something.^[5]
• 16th century – the spelling cleanse.^[8][6]
• 1680 – to smooth or polish wood or metal.^[5]
• 1946 – to clear an area of an ethnic group.^[5]
• 1999 – noun, a strict diet meant to remove toxins.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make thoroughly clean, especially by removing dirt: Cleanse the cut with warm water before you bandage it.^[12][5][7]
2. To free from sin or guilt; to purify morally or spiritually.^[15][12][5]
3. To rid a place or group of something unwanted, especially to clear an area of an ethnic group by force.^[12][5]
4. (obsolete, Old English–1650) To acquit or clear someone of a charge.^[5][7]

Noun

1. A short, very restrictive diet, often mostly of liquids, meant to rid the body of toxins.^[15]

Word family

• cleansable
• cleanser
• recleanse

Related words

• clean
• cleansing
• ethnic cleansing

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)