Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🌍 Very broad 🧹 Cleaning floors 🗑️ Collected dirt
sweeping

sweeping

2.7
Small pieces of dirt and dust left after cleaning a floor
  • noun
  • /ˈswipɪŋ/
translation icon : residuo del barrido
  • To keep the warehouse tidy, the workers regularly clear away the sweepings from the storage areas.
  • floor sweepings

Examples

  • After cleaning the kitchen, I collected the sweepings from the floor into a dustpan.

  • In winter and fall, small riddlings (street sweepings) decrease from 20 to seven percent in cities of the south zone, and from 11 to five percent in the middle zone.

    Academic text (2000)

  • Look down and see the sweepings of the street!

    Les Misérables (2012)

  • "It smells like stable sweepings."

    Fiction book (1992)

  • She discreetly scooped up some hearth sweepings to ship home.

    Academic text (2004)

  • The gardener noticed the sweepings of leaves and twigs scattered in the yard.

Synonyms

debris
vssweeping
302 4.1

Scattered broken pieces left after something is destroyed

is small everyday floor particles collected when brushing a surface
dust mouse
vssweeping
  • UK
7.0

A small ball of dust, hair, and crumbs that collects under furniture

is loose tiny particles gathered from floors by brushing

Antonyms

cleanliness
26 1.0

Being free from dirt and keeping things tidy

How Much

heap
53 1.1
sweeping
2.7
dust
706 1.0
crumb
96 1.0
speck
66 1.3

Surface Forms

sweeping singular
sweepings plural

Morphology

sweeping = sweep (transparent) = sweep + ing

The noun meaning 'the debris from sweeping' is a straightforward nominal use derived from the action 'sweep' and is inferable from the base action.

Etymology

Sweeping meaning the small bits of dirt comes from the verb sweep, because these are the things you 'sweep' into a pile. So sweeping refers to the dust and bits you collect when you clean.