Housecleaned

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Thoroughly tidied and scrubbed the rooms, floors and surfaces of a home
2. Carried out the chores of washing, dusting and tidying inside a residence
3. Took care of the interior cleaning of a dwelling by sweeping, wiping and dusting

Etymology: "Housecleaned" is the past tense and past participle of "houseclean," a verb made by joining two plain English words: "house" and "clean." The compound follows a common English pattern in which a noun is placed in front of a verb to say what is being done to it, so "to houseclean" means to clean a house thoroughly, from top to bottom. The verb is built from the native elements rather than borrowed, so its story is one of straightforward combination. Its meaning is also more specific than its parts suggest. "Clean" alone can describe almost anything made free of dirt, but the compound narrows it to the whole domestic space, with the sense of a full, periodic overhaul rather than a quick tidy. Because the verb is formed on the spot from familiar words, it is easy to understand on first hearing, and it can be inflected like any regular verb: "houseclean" becomes "housecleans," "housecleaning," and "housecleaned."

Synonyms: cleaned, tidied, scrubbed

Antonyms: soiled, dirtied