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

Henderson sent several texts to a partner at DTLA about picking up checks for his work in Val Verde, according to messages reviewed by The Times.

— Rebecca Ellis, Los Angeles Times, 12 July 2026
Later in the second half, Olise teed up Ousmane Dembele with prodded outside-of-the-boot passes after picking up loose balls in front of the defence.

— Thom Harris, New York Times, 4 July 2026

Definition of picking up

Verb

Aguirre’s interviews are carefully edited with bleeps, censoring the ‘cabr—s’, the ‘hijos de p—s’ and ‘carambas’.

— Colin Millar, New York Times, 4 July 2026
Vance asserted that the 2020 election was rigged due to tech companies censoring information.

— Britta Miller, The Washington Examiner, 27 June 2026

Definition of censoring

Verb

This oral therapy marks a major step toward eradicating cardiovascular disease.

— Robert Glatter, Forbes.com, 17 July 2026
When William and his brother, Prince Harry, were young boys, the former Princess of Wales would regularly take them to homeless shelters, and eradicating homelessness has become a cornerstone of the future king’s royal work.

— Rachel Burchfield, InStyle, 30 June 2026

Definition of eradicating

Verb

Engineers could move more quickly from sketches to testable 3D designs, reducing development costs, shortening design cycles, and exploring a wider range of ideas without creating large amounts of new training data.

— Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 18 July 2026
On Tuesday, a Paris appeals court cleared a path for the 57-year-old Le Pen to run by shortening a ban on seeking public office that had spelled possible doom for her ambitions.

— ABC News, ABC News, 8 July 2026

Definition of shortening

Verb

These hit the ticker the same day IBM cratered 25%, erasing roughly $40 billion in market value on a revenue miss that, in any other environment, would have been unremarkable.

— Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 15 July 2026
Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company has plunged one-third from its post-listing peak, erasing nearly $850 billion in value.

— Bloomberg, Mercury News, 15 July 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

Lisa Walker-Yeager Lisa Walker-Yeager is running a campaign focused on abolishing or significantly reducing the property tax burden that residents, particularly senior citizens, have at a time when most goods and services are more expensive.

— Sofi Zeman July 16, Kansas City Star, 16 July 2026
Polling found that support for abolishing ICE surged even among Republicans after the killing of the 37-year-old ICU nurse.

— Michael Loria, USA Today, 15 July 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 22 Jul. 2026.

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Synonyms of cleaning (up)

verb

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