Cleanup

How to spell cleanup

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cleanup

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cleanup mean?

1. nounThe act or process of clearing away mess, dirt, or waste from a place.
2. adjectiveUsed before a noun to describe something relating to clearing away mess or waste.

Cleanup in a sentence

• noun

  The festival organisers budgeted heavily for the cleanup afterwards.

• adjective

  The company hired a cleanup crew to deal with the flooded basement.

• noun

  Volunteers gathered for a beach cleanup on Saturday morning.

• adjective

  Each tenant signed a cleanup checklist before moving out.

Where does cleanup come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word is a closed compound built from two very old native English elements. The first part, clean, comes from the Old English clǣne, which meant 'free of dirt, pure, or unsoiled', and was related to similar Germanic words across the North Sea. The second part, up, derives from the Old English up, carrying its sense of upward motion and, by extension, the idea of bringing something to completion (as in 'finish up' or 'tidy up'). For centuries English used 'clean up' as a two-word verb phrase, and only in the later 1800s did writers begin fusing the pair into a single noun for the act or result of clearing away mess. The spelling trap is simply the join: the noun and modifier are written as one solid word, cleanup, whereas the verb stays open as 'clean up'.

How the word is built

• clean (Old English clǣne: free of dirt)
• up (Old English up: in an upward or completing direction), joined as a closed compound noun