clear away

Verb

clear away (third-person singular simple present clears away, present participle clearing away, simple past and past participle cleared away)

1. (transitive) To tidy up, to remove mess or obstacles from a place to make it neat.
   • Further along the gallery was the huge skeleton barrel of a brontosaurus. My museum hypothesis was confirmed. Going toward the side of the gallery I found what appeared to be sloping shelves, and clearing away the thick dust, I found the old familiar glass cases of our own time. But these must have...1895 May 29, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “After the Story”, in The Time Machine: An Invention, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, page 153
2. (intransitive) To leave, disappear.
   • The showers should clear away tomorrow.
   • Those who were nearest saw her head drop suddenly, as she choked upon her bosom; and then the cords burning through and through, the whole lifeless body tumbled forward into the embers, causing a considerable flutter of dust and smoke; and when it cleared away, there was nothing to be seen but a...1827, Thomas Hood, The exile. The owl. The German knight. The Florentine kinsmen. The carrier's wife. The two faithful lovers of Sicily. The Venetan countess. A tale of the harem. The chestnut tree....
3. (figuratively, transitive) To dispose of, to get rid of, to remove.
   • A state ideology, mixing nationalism, and basic Marxist economics, going under the name "Juche", was constructed, and Kim Il-sung effectively silenced, disposed of and cleared away any opposition, isolating the country and exercising an iron grip on the military, the state media and the government...2011 December 19, Kerry Brown, “Kim Jong-il obituary”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 Dec 2011
4. (transitive) To prepare some object for use by removing obstacles, untying or unfastening it.
   • The schooner was run into the wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long living arc of a leap.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Wheelbarrow”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 68
   • "Hiram Jefferson and John Moreton to the pumps!" cried the captain. "Mr. Tomlinson, clear away the long boat and let us see if we may set her right, though I fear that she is past mending."1893, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Last Port”, in The Refugees: A Tale of Two Continents, volume III, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, part II (The New World), page 42