Word.ws English Dictionary

cleaned someone's clock

cleaned someone's clock is the simple past and past participle of clean someone's clock.

Meaning of clean someone's clock

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

Questions about cleaned someone's clock

What is cleaned someone's clock the simple past and past participle of?
Cleaned someone's clock is the simple past and past participle of clean someone's clock.

Words near cleaned someone's clock in the dictionary

  1. cleaned down
  2. cleaned house
  3. cleaned off
  4. cleaned one's plate
  5. cleaned out
  6. cleaned someone's clock
  7. cleaned up
  8. cleaned up after
  9. cleaned up one's act
  10. cleaned up one's plate
  11. cleaner

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cleaned someone's clock (page history and authors); 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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