CLEANING UP Synonyms: 139 Similar and Opposite Words

cleaning (up)

verb

present participle of clean (up)

as in tidying (up)

to make a place neat and orderly by removing extraneous stuff you're expected to clean up after you use the workroom

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as in censoring

to remove objectionable parts from cleaned up the rock star's interview before publishing it in the newspaper

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as in eradicating

to destroy all traces of hurriedly cleaned up the mess that they had created in the kitchen

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for cleaning (up)

Verb

The final 100 pages are a thrilling, heart-stopping adventure in the New Mexico desert, picking up the pace with unexpected urgency and narrative anxiety.

— Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 17 Sep. 2026
Lee fills his glass from a second bottle, bantering away with his lifelong pal before picking up a third.

— David Fear, Rolling Stone, 17 Sep. 2026

Definition of picking up

Verb

Earlier in the week, Kraft allegedly led a pressure campaign to force the Seattle rapper off Ed Sheeran’s The Loop Tour, igniting a firestorm of backlash from artists and fans accusing Kraft of censoring Macklemore’s free speech.

— Charisma Madarang, Rolling Stone, 16 Sep. 2026
Beijing, for its part, maintains a series of firewalls that—in addition to surveilling and censoring the Chinese people—protect Chinese networks from American offensive intrusions.

— ANNE NEUBERGER, Foreign Affairs, 15 Sep. 2026

Definition of censoring

Verb

Back then, researchers were focused on eradicating the New World screwworm, a nasty pest that lays its eggs in wounds on living creatures.

— Alex Harris, Miami Herald, 21 Sep. 2026
The quest for 500 million flies The only way the US has succeeded in eradicating screwworm is by breeding millions of flies, sterilizing them using radiation and dropping them in areas with infestations.

— Jen Christensen, CNN Money, 7 Sep. 2026

Definition of eradicating

Verb

The idea is to connect engineering, manufacturing and inspection through the same digital model, potentially reducing errors and shortening the time needed to move from design to hardware.

— Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 16 Sep. 2026
And today's best estimates of the amount of water on the moon are about 30 times less than a billion tons, shortening the time to water exhaustion by the same factor.

— Martin Elvis, Space.com, 14 Sep. 2026

Definition of shortening

Verb

Treating those experiences as interchangeable risks erasing the sacrifice behind one of them.

— Angelette C. Aviles, Baltimore Sun, 19 Sep. 2026
After erasing a three-touchdown deficit in the second half, the Saints matched the Lions' touchdown in overtime and tried to win the game with a 2-point conversion that failed when second-year quarterback Tyler Shough's pass fell incomplete.

— ABC News, ABC News, 14 Sep. 2026

Definition of erasing

Verb

Shares slumped 16% for a third straight session of losses, wiping out $400 billion in market cap on Monday alone.

— Gail Krishnan, CNBC, 23 June 2026
The prospect of even a mini-Dust Bowl is alarming as the original disaster during the Great Depression sent dust clouds across rural America, wiping out entire communities and triggering mass migration to other parts of the country.

— Jason Ma, Fortune, 21 June 2026

Definition of wiping out

Verb

Other positions of the Democratic Socialists of America party that have come under fire in the 2026 election cycle have included abolishing the Senate, closing prisons, and having corporations become owned by the government.

— Tracy Grant, Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Sep. 2026
Karishma Manzur, a medical scientist and first-time candidate, supported Medicare for All and abolishing ICE while declining money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.

— Phillip M. Bailey, USA Today, 9 Sep. 2026

Definition of abolishing

Verb

For a few minutes at each end of that window, the moon’s edge will appear to align with that of the sun, blotting out the star’s fierce light and revealing the wispy corona off to one side.

— Meghan Bartels, Scientific American, 6 Apr. 2026
From up in the space shuttle, in 1983, astronaut Sally Ride could see the pollution blotting out her Los Angeles hometown.

— Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times, 26 Mar. 2026

Definition of blotting out

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“Cleaning (up).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cleaning%20%28up%29. Accessed 23 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of cleaning (up)

verb

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