Word.ws English Dictionary

in the clear

in the clear prepositional phrase: not guilty or not suspected of wrongdoing.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (US, idiomatic) Not guilty or not suspected of wrongdoing.
    • Offshore sports betting . . .is judged illegal in the U.S. under laws originally drawn up in the '60s; sites offering casino-style virtual gaming claimed they were in the clear.2006 July 23, “Risky Business”, in Time
  2. (radio or data transmission) Transmitted without encryption or scrambling.
    • FM radio stations are broadcast in the clear.
  3. (idiomatic) No longer in danger.
    • “Think we're in the clear?” Leif asked, still studying the rooftops and doorways for new threats. Before Nick could answer, the whole world exploded in fire and smoke.2013, Alexis Morgan, A Soldier's Heart: A Snowberry Creek Novella (A Penguin Special from Signet Eclipse), Penguin, →ISBN

Questions about in the clear

What does in the clear mean?
In the clear means not guilty or not suspected of wrongdoing.
What part of speech is in the clear?
In the clear is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in the clear in the dictionary

  1. in the bucket
  2. in the buff
  3. in the business of
  4. in the can
  5. in the cards
  6. in the clear
  7. in the closet
  8. in the clouds
  9. in the club
  10. in the cold light of day
  11. in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in the 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-in the clear.ogg.

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