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Glite Dictionary
to clean someone's clock

to clean someone's clock

9.3
Beat someone badly in a game or fight
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : derrotar a alguien
  • During the debate, he cleaned his opponent's clock with well-researched arguments.

Examples

  • The opposing team cleaned our clock in the playoffs, leaving us disappointed.

  • Swanberg, to put it mildly, cleaned Devin's fucking clock.

    Blog text (14)

  • In the final round, Sarah really cleaned someone's clock and won the championship.

Synonyms

to destroy
vsto clean someone's clock
  • Informal
557 1.7

Beat someone completely in a contest or game

focuses on decisive victory rather than on complete ruin
to vanquish
vsto clean someone's clock
  • Formal
109 7.2

Beat someone or something completely in a conflict

is more colloquial and used in everyday speech
to knock out
vsto clean someone's clock
46 3.4

To remove someone or something from a competition by defeating them

covers decisive wins that do not necessarily remove someone entirely
to demolish
vsto clean someone's clock
8 3.7

Defeat an opponent completely and easily

denotes decisive defeat without stressing humiliation
to wipe the floor with
vsto clean someone's clock
  • Informal
8 7.5

To beat someone completely in a game or contest

is used mainly for decisive wins in competitions or confrontations
to clobber
vsto clean someone's clock
  • Informal
8 7.7

To beat someone completely in a game or fight

is similar but used broadly for any strong decisive defeat
to mop up
vsto clean someone's clock
  • Informal
1 5.2

To defeat an opponent completely and easily

is like this but often refers to any clear decisive victory
to tonk
vsto clean someone's clock
  • Slang
9.9

To beat someone badly in a game

is used more broadly for decisive defeats beyond games
to settle someone's hash
vsto clean someone's clock
  • Slang
9.3

To punish or defeat someone to stop their harmful actions

is focused on decisive defeat in contests rather than punishment

Antonyms

to lose
∞ 1.0

Fail to win a game or contest

How Decisive

to annihilate
  • NSFW
63 7.5
to trounce
14 7.5
to clean someone's clock
  • Informal
9.3
to beat
∞ 1.4

Surface Forms

clean someone's clock infinitive
cleaned someone's clock past
cleaned someone's clock past participle
cleaning someone's clock present participle
cleans someone's clock third person singular

Morphology

clean + someone's + clock

The meaning 'to defeat someone decisively' cannot be derived from the literal parts: 'clean' (remove dirt/take out), a possessive, and 'clock' (timepiece) offer no compositional clue to victory or beating someone. This is an idiomatic, language-specific usage requiring prior exposure, so a B1 learner who only knows the constituents would not reliably infer the intended sense.

Etymology

Clean someone's clock may come from old slang where 'clock' meant a person's face or head. One popular story says to clean someone's clock was to hit their face so hard it looked wiped clean, so the phrase now means 'to defeat someone decisively'.