Word.ws English Dictionary

clearing the air

clearing the air is the present participle and gerund of clear the air.

Meaning of clear the air

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

Questions about clearing the air

What is clearing the air the present participle and gerund of?
Clearing the air is the present participle and gerund of clear the air.

Words near clearing the air in the dictionary

  1. clearing out
  2. clearing saw
  3. clearing saws
  4. clearing station
  5. clearing stations
  6. clearing the air
  7. clearing the decks
  8. clearing the market
  9. clearing the neighborhood
  10. clearing the table
  11. clearing up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clearing the air (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “clearing the air.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clearing_the_air. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.