Word.ws English Dictionary

spot clean

spot clean is the alternative form of spot-clean.

Meaning of spot-clean

Verb

spot-clean (third-person singular simple present spot-cleans, present participle spot-cleaning, simple past and past participle spot-cleaned)

  1. To clean only those parts that are soiled, rather than cleaning the entire thing, area, etc.
    • “You can ruin the cloth if you try to spot-clean it,” warns Susan Fritz, co-owner of Denver Doll Hospital, a doll-cleaning and restoration business.1999, Jeff Bredenberg, Clean It Fast, Clean It Right, page 151

Forms of spot clean

third-person singular presentspot cleans
present participlespot cleaning
past participlespot cleaned
pastspot cleaned

Questions about spot clean

What is spot clean the alternative form of?
Spot clean is the alternative form of spot-clean.

Words near spot clean in the dictionary

  1. spot cash
  2. spot check
  3. spot checked
  4. spot checking
  5. spot checks
  6. spot clean
  7. spot cleaned
  8. spot cleaning
  9. spot cleans
  10. spot color
  11. spot colors

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spot clean (page history and authors); spot-clean (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: “spot clean.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spot_clean. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.