clearing
Syllables: clear·ingUK/ˈklɪəɹɪŋ//ˈklɪɹɪŋ/
clearing is the present participle and gerund of clear.
Noun
clearing (countable and uncountable, plural clearings)
- The act or process of making or becoming clear.
- An area of land within a wood or forest devoid of trees.
- Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges[…]: or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and its curving shore far below us.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- glade
- An open space in the fog etc.
- A process of exchanging transaction information and authorisation through a central institution or system to complete and settle those transactions.
- A sequence of events used to disconnect a call, and return to the ready state.
- The period in which remaining university places are allocated to remaining students.
- The act of removing the ball from one's own goal area by kicking it.
- Synonyms:
- clearance
Meaning of clear
Verb
clear (third-person singular simple present clears, present participle clearing, simple past and past participle cleared)
- To remove obstructions, impediments or other unwanted items from.
- Police took two hours to clear the road.
- To remove (items or material) so as to leave something unobstructed or open.
- Please clear all this stuff off the table.
- Synonyms:
- stub
- To leave abruptly; to clear off or clear out.
- Then the whole population cleared into the forest, expecting all kinds of calamities to happen, while, on the other hand, the steamer Fresleven commanded left also in a bad panic, in charge of the engineer, I believe.1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 199
- To become free from obstruction or obscurement; to become transparent.
- When the road cleared we continued our journey.
- To eliminate ambiguity or doubt from (a matter); to clarify or resolve; to clear up.
- We need to clear this issue once and for all.
- To remove from suspicion, especially of having committed a crime.
- The court cleared the man of murder.
- Synonyms:
- absolve, exonerate, vindicate, acquittance, assoil, assoilzie, acquit, disculp, disculpate, exculpate
Synonyms of clearing
Forms of clearing
| plural | clearings |
|---|
Origin of clearing
From clear + -ing.
Words formed from clearing
Phrases with clearing
Words that rhyme with clearing
Questions about clearing
- What does clearing mean?
- Clearing means the act or process of making or becoming clear.
- What is clearing the present participle and gerund of?
- Clearing is the present participle and gerund of clear.
- What part of speech is clearing?
- Clearing is a noun.
- How do you pronounce clearing?
- Clearing is pronounced /ˈklɪɹɪŋ/ (US).
- What is the plural of clearing?
- The plural of clearing is clearings.
Words near clearing in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: clearing (page history and authors); clear (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-clearing.wav.
Cite this entry: “clearing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clearing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.