Cleanser
nounA substance, especially a liquid or cream, used to clean the skin or a surface.
How to spell cleanser
8 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce cleanser
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does cleanser mean?
- nounA substance, especially a liquid or cream, used to clean the skin or a surface.
Cleanser in a sentence
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She massaged the gentle cleanser into her face before rinsing.
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The bathroom cleanser removed the soap scum from the tiles.
Where does cleanser come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word traces back to the Old English verb clǣnsian, meaning 'to make clean' or 'to purify', which was formed from the adjective clǣne, 'clean'. That verb survives today as 'cleanse', and the spelling preserves the older form: notice the -se ending, which is what separates cleanse from the plainer 'clean'. The agent suffix -er was then attached to name the substance or agent that does the cleansing, giving 'cleanser'. The whole family is solidly Germanic, sharing roots with related words in the older Germanic languages rather than being borrowed from Latin or French. The spelling trap lives in that buried 's': the word sounds like it ends in a 'z', so writers are tempted to drop the 's' or swap in a 'z', yet the standard form keeps the 'cleanse' stem intact.
How the word is built
- cleanse (from Old English clǣne: clean)
- -er (agent/instrument suffix, denoting the thing that does the action)
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