to get one's clock cleaned
2
9.9
- idiom
- Informal
:
ser derrotado
- The bottom line is that your rich jerk (much despised by Gingrich, Santorum et al.) got his clock cleaned.
- gonna get one's clock cleaned
Examples
-
The champion boxer got his clock cleaned during the title match, leaving him stunned.
-
And unfortunately, the last scientist who publicly debated Vahrenholt got his clock cleaned.
Blog text (29) -
You are getting your clock cleaned.
-
This one little spic is getting his clock cleaned by another one.
-
Your boy Rmoney is about to get his clock cleaned.
Blog text (16) -
He got his clock cleaned.
Blog text (27) -
I tried sparring against some friends who have done some PvP'ing, and got my clock cleaned.
-
I hoped that the guy in the orange trunks with the black fringe, his name emblazoned across his butt, would get his clock cleaned.
Fiction book (2002) -
"Bottom line is that your rich jerk (much despised by Gingrich, Santorum et al.) got his clock cleaned.
Blog text (31) -
After losing the debate by a wide margin, the candidate realized he had truly gotten his clock cleaned.
Synonyms
557
1.7
Beat someone completely in a contest or game
109
7.2
Beat someone or something completely in a conflict
49
3.8
Defeat others in a contest to win a job or prize
8
3.7
Defeat an opponent completely and easily
8
7.5
To beat someone completely in a game or contest
Beat someone badly in a game or fight
To punish or defeat someone to stop their harmful actions
Antonyms
How Defeated
Surface Forms
Morphology
The idiomatic meaning 'to be thoroughly defeated' cannot be reliably inferred from the literal parts: 'get' (receive/undergo), 'one's' (possessive), 'clock' (timepiece) and 'cleaned' (remove dirt or, in slang, 'clean out'). The combined imagery does not transparently map onto defeat, and the phrase is a language-specific idiom that a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would not predict without prior exposure.
Etymology
Get one's clock cleaned probably comes from a fighting image: people once used clock to mean a person's face, and if you were punched until your face was a mess it looked like your clock had been 'cleaned'. That's why the phrase means 'to be defeated badly'.