Cleanse: A Deeper Word Than Clean
To cleanse is to clean thoroughly, especially skin or a wound. The word also carries moral and ritual weight, which is why it appears in religion and in some very dark phrases.
Cleanse is the heavier sibling of *clean*. You clean a floor and cleanse a wound; the difference is not effort but purpose, because cleansing implies removing something that should not be there at all.
- To clean thoroughly. *Cleanse the cut with saline.*
- To purify morally or ritually. *Cleansed of guilt.*
- A period of restricted diet (noun, informal). *A three-day juice cleanse.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Verb | cleanse | Cleanse the area gently. |
| Noun | cleanser | A facial cleanser. |
| Adjective | cleansing | A cleansing routine. |
| Related | clean | A clean bandage. |
| Related | purify | Purify the water. |
How it is used in a sentence
- Cleanse the skin before applying the cream.Standard skincare and first-aid wording.
- A cleansing breath before you begin.Common in yoga and meditation instruction.
- Ethnic cleansing is a crime under international law.A euphemism for forced removal and killing — the darkest use of the word.
Clean and cleanse compared
- Clean — everyday, physical, about dirt
- Cleanse — thorough, often about skin, wounds or wrongdoing
- Purify — remove impurity from a substance, or from the spirit
- Sanitise — reduce germs to a safe level; also to soften an unpleasant account
- Detoxify — remove poison, though the popular diet sense has no medical basis
From Old English *claensian*, formed from *claene*, clean. The ritual meaning is as old as the physical one in English, because early religious writing used the same verb for washing the body and washing the soul.
Clean or cleanse?
Use clean for objects and rooms, cleanse for skin, wounds and anything with a moral or ritual sense.
Do juice cleanses work?
There is no evidence that they remove toxins. The liver and kidneys already do that work continuously.