Cleanses

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Removes dirt, stains, or impurities from a surface or person ; carries out a religious or spiritual purification to make something ceremonially clean
2. Washes away unwanted substances or contaminants from something ; conducts a sacred or symbolic act to cleanse spiritually or morally
3. Purifies by eliminating dirt or unwanted material ; executes a ritual intended to purify or sanctify in a cultural or religious context

Etymology: "Cleanses" is the third-person singular form of "cleanse," so it simply takes the verb's history. "Cleanse" comes from Old English "clǣnsian," which grew from the adjective "clean" with a verb-making ending, so the verb is essentially "to make clean" built directly on a familiar root. Its ancestor, reconstructed as Proto-West Germanic "*klainisōn," shows the same pattern. The word has close relatives across the North Sea. West Frisian "klinzgje," archaic Dutch "kleinzen," and Middle Low German "klênsen" all mean something like "to clean" or "to purify," which suggests the verb was shared among the early West Germanic languages before they diverged. Middle English then carried it forward as "clensen," the form that eventually gave us the modern spelling.

Synonyms: purifies, sanitizes, washes, cleans, removes

Antonyms: contaminates