noun, verb ·3 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Collectively, the tasks involved with cleaning a house; the practice of cleaning a house. countable, uncountable

   "If you do not keep up with the housecleaning, you will soon have a huge mess."

2. 2
   the act of cleaning the rooms and furnishings of a house wordnet
3. 3
   (figurative) the act of reforming by the removal of unwanted personnel or practices or conditions wordnet

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of houseclean form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms

housework

Example

More examples

"If you do not keep up with the housecleaning, you will soon have a huge mess."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From house + cleaning.

Etymology 2

From houseclean + -ing.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.