Clear

How to spell clear

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce clear

What does clear mean?

1. adjectiveEasy to see through, or easy to perceive and understand.
2. verbTo remove obstacles, contents, or obstructions from a place or surface.

Clear in a sentence

• adjective

  The instructions were so clear that nobody needed to ask questions.

• verb

  Please clear the table before the guests arrive.

• adjective

  The water in the lake was perfectly clear down to the pebbles.

• verb

  The council hired a crew to clear the road after the storm.

Where does clear come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin clarus, which literally meant 'bright' or 'shining' and was also used figuratively for something 'plain' or 'evident'. It passed into Old French as cler, carrying both the visual sense of brightness and the extended sense of an unclouded mind or argument, and English adopted it in the 1200s. From the start the word straddled the physical and the mental: a clear sky and a clear explanation share the same idea of nothing standing in the way of perception. The same Latin root survives in relatives such as 'clarity', 'declare', and 'clarinet' (named for its bright tone). The modern spelling settled with the -ear ending, which can mislead writers used to the -eer pattern of words like 'career'.

How the word is built

• clear (from Latin clarus: bright, clear)
• no affix in modern English