cleaning (out)

verb

present participle of clean (out)
as in defrauding

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for cleaning (out)
  1. defrauding
  2. shortchanging
  3. cheating
Verb
  • Evans, 34, comes from a wealthy San Diego hotel family and stood by Holmes as her blood-testing startup Theranos collapsed and she was convicted in 2022 of defrauding investors.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 20 Oct. 2026
  • Holmes was about to begin an 11-year sentence at a federal prison in Bryan, Texas, for defrauding investors in her blood-testing company, Theranos, of hundreds of millions of dollars.
    — Alex Barasch, Vulture, 19 Oct. 2026
Definition of defrauding
Verb
  • What’s worse is the scene that follows, revealing the clean-up of multiple bodies and an elaborate rewriting of the narrative that strains credulity to put it mildly, not to mention shortchanging the Mexican characters.
    — David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 8 Oct. 2026
  • Ohio lawmakers approved an $875 million payment package Wednesday after the Ohio Supreme Court found the state used the wrong formula to calculate certain Medicaid reimbursements for nursing homes, shortchanging providers by hundreds of millions of dollars.
    — Brittany Miller, FOXNews.com, 11 June 2026
Definition of shortchanging
Verb
  • The attack on Hugging Face was then part of an elaborate attempt to evade being caught cheating.
    — Beatrice Nolan, Fortune, 16 Oct. 2026
  • Educators raise concerns about cognitive offloading and easy access to cheating.
    — Kiryn Hoffman, Forbes.com, 16 Oct. 2026
Definition of cheating
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

cleaning (off)
cleaning (out)
cleaning (up)
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Cite this Entry

“Cleaning (out).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cleaning%20%28out%29. Accessed 24 Oct. 2026.

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