Word.ws English Dictionary

clear the air

clear the air verb: to assuage a hostile or uncomfortable situation.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To assuage a hostile or uncomfortable situation.
    • After much bitter in-fighting over the issue of the BF and other issues, I felt it was time to clear the air rather than deal in back-biting.1976 August 7, Kathy Guilmette, “Devil's Advocate”, in Gay Community News, page 4
    • This relationship began when you went to the Father and cleared the air by asking Him to forgive your past mistakes and sins.2014, David Judson, Are You Attackable?: Embracing God During the Battles In Life

Antonyms of clear the air

Forms of clear the air

third-person singular presentclears the air
present participleclearing the air
past participlecleared the air
pastcleared the air

Questions about clear the air

What does clear the air mean?
Clear the air means to assuage a hostile or uncomfortable situation.
What part of speech is clear the air?
Clear the air is a verb.
What is the past tense of clear the air?
The past tense of clear the air is cleared the air.

Words near clear the air in the dictionary

  1. clear rounds
  2. clear sailing
  3. Clear Script
  4. clear someone's name
  5. clear stuff
  6. clear the air
  7. clear the decks
  8. clear the ground
  9. clear the market
  10. clear the neighborhood
  11. clear the table

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clear the air (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-clear the air.wav.

Cite this entry: “clear the air.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clear_the_air. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.