cleaning up
70
1.0
- noun
:
limpieza
- What I mean by that: your job will be cleaning up and restoring a rundown hospital.
- cleaning up waste
- cleaning up contaminated sites
- cleaning up sites
Examples
-
I have to show you what I found when I was cleaning up.
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They're still cleaning up the mess.
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We have a little cleaning up to do.
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I'm just going to do a little bit of clean up here.
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Yes, the girls and I have decided that we're gonna do all the dishes and the cleaning up.
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We know that because they had me cleaning up the mud from his boots the next day.
Fiction book (1994) -
Even the ushers and other theater workers had finished cleaning up and were leaving.
Fiction book (1991) -
I'm cleaning up this pigsty.
-
Very softly, she said, "Since you helped with the cleaning up yesterday, I figure you earned one meal."
Fiction book (2001) -
After the party, we spent hours on cleaning up the kitchen and living room.
Synonyms
335
1.0
The act of removing dirt and dust from a place or object
150
1.5
The activity of making a place or thing clean
46
1.0
The act of cleaning something with water and soap
6
1.2
Cleaning the rooms and furniture in a house
4
3.9
Making something clean by removing dirt
Cleaning a surface to remove dirt and stains by strong scrubbing
Antonyms
How Clean
Surface Forms
Morphology
cleaning + up
The meaning 'the act of making a place clean by removing dirt, rubbish, or mess' is directly derived from 'cleaning' (the action of cleaning) combined with the particle 'up', which here signals completion or thoroughness. This compositional pattern (verb/action + up = complete/finish the action) is common and cross-linguistically accessible, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Cleaning up comes from the simple image of picking things up and putting them away: cleaning means removing dirt or rubbish and up shows finishing or gathering everything together. That's why it means 'the act of making a place clean'.