cleanly

Other forms of cleanly

comparative or superlative

cleanlier

comparative or superlative

cleanliest

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about cleanly

What does cleanly mean?

cleanly means "smoothly and without difficulty; precisely and deftly". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in cleanly?

cleanly has 2 syllables: clean-ly. The stress falls on "clean". In IPA it is /ˈklinli/.

What is another word for cleanly?

Close synonyms include flawlessly. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is cleanly a common word?

cleanly is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.