Word.ws English Dictionary

taken to the cleaners

taken to the cleaners is the past participle of take to the cleaners.

Meaning of take to the cleaners

Verb

take to the cleaners (third-person singular simple present takes to the cleaners, present participle taking to the cleaners, simple past took to the cleaners, past participle taken to the cleaners)

  1. (idiomatic, slang) To take a significant quantity of a person's money or valuables, through overcharging, litigation, unfavorable investing, gambling, fraud, etc.
    • “That’s not the idea. These people you want taken to the cleaners were friends of yours yesterday. Maybe they will be friends again next week. I don’t care about that. But I’m not playing politics for you.[…]1929, Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest
  2. (idiomatic, slang) To thrash someone.
    • One more time, mate, I'll take you to the fuckin' cleaners!1979, Monty Python's Life of Brian, spoken by Mr. Big Nose (Michael Palin)

Questions about taken to the cleaners

What is taken to the cleaners the past participle of?
Taken to the cleaners is the past participle of take to the cleaners.

Words near taken to the cleaners in the dictionary

  1. taken to one's heels
  2. taken to task
  3. taken to the bank
  4. taken to the bricks
  5. taken to the cleaner's
  6. taken to the cleaners
  7. taken to the field
  8. taken to the grave
  9. taken to the heather
  10. taken to the hills
  11. taken to the road

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: taken to the cleaners (page history and authors); take to the cleaners (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: “taken to the cleaners.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/taken_to_the_cleaners. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.