Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to do very well out of a project, esp. in gambling use; thus clean-up adj., highly lucrative.

1831		J.M. Peck Guide 147: He gave a friend one measured acre [...] and cleaned up thirty-five bushels and eight quarts [of wheat] [DAE].
1900		St Paul Globe (MN) 27 Nov. 5/1: Gates quit a loser at house gambling, but he cleaned up a fortune on English race tracks.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 105: Hiram threw his hand into the discard. He had cleaned them up.
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘A Tempered Wind’ in Gentle Grafter (1915) 181: We ought to clean up $60,000.
1914		T. McNamara Us Boys 3 Nov. [synd. cartoon strip] I got the nail you ran into your foot. We’ll put it on exhibition and clean up.
1917		Boy’s Own Paper XL:2 57: Fust an’ last it ort to clean up a million!
1922		Wodehouse Clicking of Cuthbert 17: I clean up three hundred and ninety-six thousand roubles.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 281: Just think of all the guys been here all this time cleanin up on us.
1926		Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 86: These boys all know I cleaned up big in the theatre.
1931		G.S. Schuyler Black No More (1971) 174: I’d have been gone after I cleaned up that first million if it hadn’t been for her.
1933		C. Drew ‘Gorilla Grogan’ in Bulletin (Sydney) 26 July 40/1: In that way we worked as far as Bourke and cleaned up good money.
1936		Wodehouse ‘Luck of the Stiffhams’ in Young Men in Spats 175: It was his faith [...] that led young Pongo Twistleton-Twistleton to take the short end from Oofy Prosser against all the ruling of the form-book, and I [...] am delighted that he has cleaned up.
1947		F. Brown Fabulous Clipjoint (1949) 121: I jus’ cleaned up a crap game. Took th’ boys for two G’s.
1954		J. Thompson Swell-Looking Babe 34: God only knows how many thousands of dollars they cleaned up.
1956		‘Raymond Thorp’ Viper 102: With the contacts we’ve got between us we ought to clean up a fortune.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 80: During the next few moon I really cleaned up.
1976		Cab Calloway Of Minnie the Moocher and Me 59: She had about $20 or $25 per show. She was cleaning up.
1987		B. Chatwin Songlines 33: And what makes you think you can show up from Merrie Old England and clean up on sacred knowledge?
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 13: Our girls really clean up when dentists or doctors are in town.
2000		Guardian Guide 29 Jan.–4 Feb. 19: It’s already cleaned up at the Golden Globes and is being tipped as the Oscar favourite.
2004		R.G. Barrett Rosa Marie’s Baby (2013) [ebook] The best [shirts] were around two hundred dollars, yet they were all made in China. Someone must be cleaning up.
2006		D. Seabrook Jack of Jumps (2007) 256: He wasn’t cleaning up, either. Business was bad.
2012		J. Fagan Panopticon (2013) 225: You could clean up and buy a place outright by the time you were in your twenties.

2. to empty, to empty of contents.

1898		H. Macfall Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer 313: Dat feller he wipes up de bank – and no udder gen’elman puts his hands on to de table till dat bank’s done cleaned up.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Aug. 47/1: As an economic method it admits no ifs or buts; / For we clean up all the courses from the oysters to the nuts.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 129: What is now called Service consisted of cleaning up the Trough and going back for another Load.
1921		(con. WWI) E. Lynch Somme Mud 170: I [...] kept them all safely indoors entertaining me while Longun and Dark cleaned up their eggs and butter.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 130: We’d cleaned up half the bottle and I didn’t want any more whisky now.

3. (also clear up) to beat, to overcome.

1888		P.H. Sheridan Memoirs I 47: As the regular troops up there were of no account, the citizens [...] intended cleaning up the hostiles [DA].
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 166: Willie [...] had formed a firm resolve to clean up the Betting Ring and give Fleet Street a rest.
1905		F. Hutchison Philosophy of Johnny the Gent 50: ‘Well, he don’t waste no time tellin’ them college boys that he could pick out a team from the bunch around the corner an’ go out on the lot an’ clean 'em up sure’.
1914		E. Dyson Spats’ Fact’ry (1922) 60: Don’t think yiv cleaned ’em all up, Nippo [...] Mag has a whole army iv admirers.
1918		B. Hall ‘En l’air!’ 133: We do not want to kill women and children as the Germans are doing in France and England. We want to clear them up fair and square and we will!
1921		(con. WWI) E. Lynch Somme Mud 193: Hey, you told him his foot was smashed? Flamin’ near cleaned the lot of us up!
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 284: We cleaned up the squareheads, didn’t we?
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 662: His kid brother had even cleaned up on him.
1936		‘Banjo’ Paterson Shearer’s Colt 51: I was down at the track at daylight this mornin’ watchin’ her gallop and she cleaned up the black horse from Lost River, like as he was a hack.
1939		Wodehouse Uncle Fred in the Springtime 71: ‘He once took on three simultaneous costermongers in Covent Garden and cleaned them up in five minutes’.
1945		A.J. Liebling ‘Quest for Mollie’ in Just Enough Liebling (2004) 166: We took the position and cleaned up on the enemy.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 267: We’re gonna clean up the Yids.
1957		Laurents & Sondheim West Side Story I i: With those cops servin’ as cover, the PRs can move in right under our noses and take it away. Unless we speed fast and clean ’em up in one all-out fight!
1961		B. Crump Hang On a Minute, Mate (1963) 164: It was all round the district that I’d cleaned up a whole gang of bushmen on my own.
1965		F.J. Hardy Yarns of Billy Borker 13: You said before you’d tell me about an old age pensioner who—what did he do again? Cleaned up three policemen during the shearers’ strike.
2001		(con. 1945–6) P. Doyle Devil’s Jump (2008) 170: So when I belted you yesterday [...] you could have cleaned me up.

4. attrib. use of sense 3.

1928

P. Gallico ‘The Yellow Twin’ in Goodstone Pulps (1970) 39/2: There was not much incentive to do so [i.e. stay fit] in the clean-up trips through the sticks.

5. (also clear up) to make a large profit.

1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 89: I sold out three times [...] and cleaned up $235 net.
1906		A.H. Lewis Confessions of a Detective 203: I cleaned up three hundred quid on the trip—may I grin through a glass case if I don’t!
1916		J. Lait ‘The Gangster’s Elegy’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 248: They’s a game runnin’ to clean up a little bundle.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 250: They operated in several small towns in Pennsylvania, cleaning up.
1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 43: He’s cleanin’ up.
1941		B. Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? (1992) 9: That show must be cleaning up.
1948		Dan Burley ‘Back Door Stuff’ 30 Oct. [synd. col.] [with ref. to sexual conquests] The [...] screen personality who [...] cleaned up among the young daughters of the notables.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 272: Roughly, I’d say we’ll clear up about the same as we did in Townsville.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 20: Jack and I had been overseas together after we cleaned up on a flash we worked on the cockies outback.
1966		J. Holledge Great Aust. Gamble 23: Fred Angles cleaned up again on Bernborough [ibid.] 79: [N]ot all Barney Allen’s horses got beaten. On many he cleaned up large sums.
1984		J. Ellroy Blood on the Moon 195: ‘You carry dime bags for your johns and you'll clean up’.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 80: They’d gone on to become one of the biggest live acts in the world. H30 cleaned up.

6. to get rid of (hostile or alien elements).

[1886		Globle Live Stock Journal 16 Mar. in Miller & Snell Why the West was Wild 439: Ex-sheriff Masterson did not stop in his raid on saloon men [...] He says he is going to make a general clean up in Dodge].
1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 17: There is another constituency in Chicago which desires that the city be cleaned up.
1907		C.E. Mulford Bar-20 i: Yah! Yu onct tried to clean up the Bend, Buckie, an’ if Pete an’ Billy hadn’t afound yu [...] that night yu wouldn’t be here eatin’ beef.
1915		Wodehouse Psmith Journalist (1993) 294: The Law was now about to clean up the place.
1927		(con. late 1890s) H. Asbury Gangs of N.Y. 259: Says Dinny, ‘Here’s me only chance / To gain meself a name; / I’ll clean up the Hudson Dusters, / And reach the hall of fame’.
1935		R. Chandler ‘Spanish Blood’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 37: They clean up. Yeah—they clean up.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 228: The first thing would be to clean up all the hotels and stop their trading after hours.
1955		H. Kurtzman Inside Mad (2002) 140: With the cleaning up of the Floogle gang, we have probably ended the wave of mysterious killings.
1961		Mad mag. June 18: Some do-gooders are tryin’ t’ clean out dis-a town.
1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 25: Unless you cooperate with me and help me clean up that cesspool you live in. You’re a big man on The Beach.
1975		L. Rosten Dear ‘Herm’ 261: Begging and begging her to ‘clean up’ her speech has not helped.
1989		Beano Comic Library No. 182 65: I’ve come to clean up this town.
1999		Guardian Guide 6–12 Nov. 6: Fresh-faced recruit Mark Wahlberg joins canny old hand Chow Yun Fat in an effort to clean up Chinatown.
2002		J. Franzen Corrections 287: What say we just nuke all billion point two of ’em, hey? Clean that part of the world up already.

7. to abandon habits.

8. (US) to kill for revenge.

1911		C.E. Mulford Bar-20 Days 19: No funny business, or we’ll clean up the whole bunch.
1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 164: Soon as we clean up this Yale yap.

9. (US black) to make excuses, to create an alibi.

1994

C. Major Juba to Jive.

10. (US black) to confess, esp. to telling lies or to failure.

1968		‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2 16: Clean up, v. To own up to an error.
1994		C. Major Juba to Jive.

11. (Aus.) to assault, to beat up.

1991

R.G. Barrett Between the Devlin 45: If ever I find the cunts that did this, I know who else’ll be getting cleaned up.