CLEAR

Definitions

1. 1. To render bright, transparent, or undimmed; to free from clouds. He sweeps the skies and clears the cloudy north. Dryden.
2. 2. To free from impurities; to clarify; to cleanse.
3. 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. 4. To render more quick or acute, as the understanding; to make perspicacious. Our common prints would clear up their understandings. Addison
5. 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. 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. 7. To leap or pass by, or over, without touching or fallure; as, to clear a hedge; to clear a reef.
8. 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.