He sweeps the skies and clears the cloudy north.
--Dryden.
2. To free from impurities; to clarify; to cleanse.
3. To free from obscurity or ambiguity; to relive of
perplexity; to make perspicuous.
Many knotty points there are Which all discuss, but
few can clear. --Prior.
4. To render more quick or acute, as the understanding; to
make perspicacious.
Our common prints would clear up their
understandings. --Addison
5. To free from impediment or incumbrance, from defilement,
or from anything injurious, useless, or offensive; as, to
clear land of trees or brushwood, or from stones; to clear
the sight or the voice; to clear one's self from debt; --
often used with of, off, away, or out.
Clear your mind of cant. --Dr. Johnson.
A statue lies hid in a block of marble; and the art
of the statuary only clears away the superfluous
matter. --Addison.
6. To free from the imputation of guilt; to justify,
vindicate, or acquit; -- often used with from before the
thing imputed.
I . . . am sure he will clear me from partiality.
--Dryden.
How! wouldst thou clear rebellion? --Addison.
7. To leap or pass by, or over, without touching or failure;
as, to clear a hedge; to clear a reef.
8. To gain without deduction; to net.
The profit which she cleared on the cargo.
--Macaulay.
{To clear a ship at the customhouse}, to exhibit the
documents required by law, give bonds, or perform other
acts requisite, and procure a permission to sail, and such
papers as the law requires.
{To clear a ship for action}, or {To clear for action}
(Naut.), to remove incumbrances from the decks, and
prepare for an engagement.
{To clear the land} (Naut.), to gain such a distance from
shore as to have sea room, and be out of danger from the
land.
{To clear hawse} (Naut.), to disentangle the cables when
twisted.
{To clear up}, to explain; to dispel, as doubts, cares or
fears.
The better clearing of this point. --South.
2. A tract of land cleared of wood for cultivation.
A lonely clearing on the shores of Moxie Lake. --J.
Burroughs.
3. A method adopted by banks and bankers for making an
exchange of checks held by each against the others, and
settling differences of accounts.
Note: In England, a similar method has been adopted by
railroads for adjusting their accounts with each other.
4. The gross amount of the balances adjusted in the clearing
house.
{Clearing house}, the establishment where the business of
clearing is carried on. See {above}, {3}.