"clean sweep" meaning in English

See clean sweep in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: clean sweeps [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} clean sweep (plural clean sweeps)
  1. (chiefly politics) A complete or overwhelming victory, especially one in which all or almost all possible electoral contests are won. Categories (topical): Politics
    Sense id: en-clean_sweep-en-noun-lNwS2Yon Topics: government, politics
  2. (sports) The winning, by a person or team, of all the possible possible prizes, games, rounds or contests, etc in a competition, season or series. Categories (topical): Sports
    Sense id: en-clean_sweep-en-noun-~xL9SFGM Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 13 57 29 Topics: hobbies, lifestyle, sports
  3. (figuratively) A thorough change of policies, personnel or objects, removingor replacing all or almost all of that which existed previously. Tags: figuratively Translations (a thorough change of policies, personnel or things, removing or replacing all or almost all of what was there previously): teljes átalakítás (Hungarian), āmikitanga (Maori)
    Sense id: en-clean_sweep-en-noun-oImyySmy Disambiguation of 'a thorough change of policies, personnel or things, removing or replacing all or almost all of what was there previously': 22 6 72
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: a new broom sweeps clean, landslide Translations: selkeä voitto (Finnish), fölényes/elsöprő győzelem (Hungarian), piazza pulita [feminine] (Italian), kaupapa hāro (Maori)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for clean sweep meaning in English (6.0kB)

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          "ref": "1989, Geoffrey Alderman, “Municipal Reaction and the Rise of Labour”, in London Jewry and London politics, 1889-1986, page 70",
          "text": "In November 1928, as the beneficiaries of this revulsion, the Liberals made a clean sweep of every seat on the borough council.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "1992, Richard Heffernan, Mike Marqusee, “The Purge”, in Defeat from the jaws of victory: inside Kinnock's Labour Party, page 296",
          "text": "By 1991 his constituency had made a clean sweep of all twelve local council seats, that's in part to Nellist’s high-profile efforts.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "2002, Robert P. Steed, Laurence W. Moreland, “A Victory for Valence Issues”, in The 2000 presidential election in the South: partisanship and southern party systems in the 21st century, Volume 2000, page 37",
          "text": "George W. Bush made a clean sweep of the region once the dust had cleared from the Florida debacle more than a month after the election, adding 124 votes from elsewhere for a scrape-by total of 271 votes to claim the nation's highest office.",
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          "ref": "1992 January, “Freddie is fastest in Miami”, in American Motorcyclist, volume 46, number 1, American Motorcyclist Association, →ISSN, page 38",
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          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "2001 April 23, “Tiger Wins”, in JET, volume 99, number 19, Johnson Publishing Company, →ISSN, page 55",
          "text": "He achieved a clean sweep winning four professional majors in a span of 294 days.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2008 September, “Chess”, in Pratiyogita Darpan, volume 3, number 27, Pratiyogita Darpan, page 398",
          "text": "India made a clean sweep of medals in the boys’ under-12 and girls’ under 10 sections.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "The winning, by a person or team, of all the possible possible prizes, games, rounds or contests, etc in a competition, season or series."
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(sports) The winning, by a person or team, of all the possible possible prizes, games, rounds or contests, etc in a competition, season or series."
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          "ref": "1919, William Dudley Foulke, “CLEVELAND'S SECOND TERM”, in Fighting the Spoilsmen (Politics and People: The Ordeal of Self-Government in America), published 1974, page 96",
          "text": "These were unfortunate selections and Mr. Quincy, who had the consular appointments in charge, so made an almost clean sweep in that branch of the service, removing Republicans and putting Democrats in with “unprecedented vivacity.”",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "1994, Colin Baker, “Relationships with Officials”, in Development governor: a biography of Sir Geoffrey Colby, page 119",
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    }
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  "word": "clean sweep"
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          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992, Richard Heffernan, Mike Marqusee, “The Purge”, in Defeat from the jaws of victory: inside Kinnock's Labour Party, page 296",
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          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2002, Robert P. Steed, Laurence W. Moreland, “A Victory for Valence Issues”, in The 2000 presidential election in the South: partisanship and southern party systems in the 21st century, Volume 2000, page 37",
          "text": "George W. Bush made a clean sweep of the region once the dust had cleared from the Florida debacle more than a month after the election, adding 124 votes from elsewhere for a scrape-by total of 271 votes to claim the nation's highest office.",
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          "text": "Scott Russell, who had sewn up the Yokohama 750cc Supersport championship earlier in the year, completed a clean sweep of the series races with his ninth victory in Miami.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2001 April 23, “Tiger Wins”, in JET, volume 99, number 19, Johnson Publishing Company, →ISSN, page 55",
          "text": "He achieved a clean sweep winning four professional majors in a span of 294 days.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008 September, “Chess”, in Pratiyogita Darpan, volume 3, number 27, Pratiyogita Darpan, page 398",
          "text": "India made a clean sweep of medals in the boys’ under-12 and girls’ under 10 sections.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "text": "These were unfortunate selections and Mr. Quincy, who had the consular appointments in charge, so made an almost clean sweep in that branch of the service, removing Republicans and putting Democrats in with “unprecedented vivacity.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994, Colin Baker, “Relationships with Officials”, in Development governor: a biography of Sir Geoffrey Colby, page 119",
          "text": "[In 1951] Colby had an almost clean sweep of his closest official advisors.",
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "word": "selkeä voitto"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "word": "fölényes/elsöprő győzelem"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "piazza pulita"
    },
    {
      "code": "mi",
      "lang": "Maori",
      "word": "kaupapa hāro"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "a thorough change of policies, personnel or things, removing or replacing all or almost all of what was there previously",
      "word": "teljes átalakítás"
    },
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      "code": "mi",
      "lang": "Maori",
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    }
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.