Clear

Part of speech: adjective, verb

Pronunciation: /klɪə/

Definitions

1. Free from obstruction, cloudiness, or impurities; easy to perceive, understand, or interpret; having no doubt or ambiguity
2. Transparent or unobstructed in appearance or form; straightforward and easily comprehended; unmistakably evident or beyond dispute
3. Free of confusion, blockage, or unwanted matter; plainly visible or intelligible; certain and unambiguous in meaning or status

Etymology: Before "clear" meant transparent or easily understood, it was a word for sound and light. The Latin "clarus" meant bright, loud, or famous, and that sense of brightness carried into French as "cler" and then into Middle English as "clere." English already had its own words for this idea, including "schir," "skere," and "smolt," and "clear" gradually pushed them aside, so the word now in use is a French-Latin arrival that displaced native English vocabulary. The same root shows up across European languages. German "klar," Dutch "klaar," Swedish "klar," French "clair," Italian "chiaro," and Spanish "claro" all descend from the same Latin source, and they all keep the sense of bright or plain. Going further back, the Latin form traces to a Proto-Indo-European root, but the path from that ancient root to English runs through Latin and Old French.

Synonyms: transparent, unclouded, obvious, evident, distinct

Antonyms: cloudy, obscure, vague, ambiguous, confused