Word.ws English Dictionary

clean someone's clock

clean someone's clock verb: to defeat someone decisively, in a physical fight or other competition or negotiation.

Verb

clean someone's clock (third-person singular simple present cleans someone's clock, present participle cleaning someone's clock, simple past and past participle cleaned someone's clock)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To defeat someone decisively, in a physical fight or other competition or negotiation.
    • "When big business goes head to head with unions, the unions clean their clock," said one Republican aide in Congress.1997 November 12, Richard W. Stevenson, “Executives Say Trade Bill Defeat Will Hurt Economy”, in New York Times, retrieved 07 Oct 2008
    • Barack Obama cleaned her clock in the debates.2007 April 28, Carla Marinucci, “Hillary on a roll”, in San Francisco Chronicle, retrieved 07 Oct 2008

Synonyms of clean someone's clock

Forms of clean someone's clock

third-person singular presentcleans someone's clock
present participlecleaning someone's clock
past participlecleaned someone's clock
pastcleaned someone's clock

Origin of clean someone's clock

From clean (“to thrash, defeat”) and clock (“face”) as metonym for “guy”, “someone”.

Words formed from clean someone's clock

Questions about clean someone's clock

What does clean someone's clock mean?
Clean someone's clock means to defeat someone decisively, in a physical fight or other competition or negotiation.
What part of speech is clean someone's clock?
Clean someone's clock is a verb.
What is the past tense of clean someone's clock?
The past tense of clean someone's clock is cleaned someone's clock.

Words near clean someone's clock in the dictionary

  1. clean shells
  2. clean skin
  3. clean skins
  4. clean slate
  5. clean slates
  6. clean someone's clock
  7. clean sweep
  8. clean sweeps
  9. clean teen
  10. clean teens
  11. clean up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clean someone's clock (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-clean someone's clock.ogg.

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