cleanse Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb clean one's body or parts thereof, as by washing
    clean.
    • clean up before you see your grandparents
    • clean your fingernails before dinner
  2. verb purge of an ideology, bad thoughts, or sins
    • Purgatory is supposed to cleanse you from your sins

WordNet

Cleanse transitive verb
Etymology
AS. clænsian, fr. clæne clean. See Clean.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Cleansed ; present participle & verbal noun Cleansing
Definitions
  1. To render clean; to free from fith, pollution, infection, guilt, etc.; to clean.
    If we walk in the light . . . the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin. 1 John i. 7.
    Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the suffed bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? Shak.

Webster 1913