a floor one could eat off
- idiom
- Informal
- The kitchen was so spotless it had a floor one could eat off.
Examples
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After hours of scrubbing, the janitor declared the classroom had a floor one could eat off.
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They keep their apartment pristine, with a floor one could eat off in every room.
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Her kitchen has a floor one could eat off.
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Can you believe this place has a floor one could eat off?
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The dining room was so meticulously cleaned that it had a floor one could eat off.
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After the thorough cleaning, the house sparkled, sporting a floor one could eat off.
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I was impressed to see that his workshop had a floor one could eat off despite the usual mess of tools.
Antonyms
How Clean
Surface Forms
Morphology
a + floor + one + could + eat + off
The notion 'extremely clean floor' follows directly from combining 'floor' with the literal claim 'one could eat off' (i.e., the surface is so clean it would be possible to eat from it). This is a simple hyperbolic simile that follows transparent compositional logic and is likely understandable to a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.
Etymology
A floor one could eat off gives a clear image: a floor so clean you could really eat off it after dropping food. People use this picture to say a place is 'spotless', so the phrase means 'extremely clean'.