UNCLEAN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does unclean mean? 

• UNCLEAN (adjective)
  The adjective UNCLEAN has 2 senses:

1. soiled or likely to soil with dirt or grime

2. having a physical or moral blemish so as to make impure according to dietary or ceremonial laws

  Familiarity information: UNCLEAN used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNCLEAN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Soiled or likely to soil with dirt or grime

Synonyms:

dirty; soiled; unclean

Context example:

Cinderella did the dirty work while her sisters preened themselves

Similar:

Augean (extremely filthy from long neglect)

unwashed (not cleaned with or as if with soap and water)

unswept (not having been swept)

uncleanly (habitually unclean)

travel-soiled; travel-stained (soiled from travel)

sooty (covered with or as if with soot)

snot-nosed; snotty (dirty with nasal discharge)

smudgy (smeared with something that soils or stains; these words are often used in combination)

scummy (covered with scum)

ratty (dirty and infested with rats)

mucky; muddy (dirty and messy; covered with mud or muck)

maculate (spotted or blotched)

lousy (infested with lice)

flyblown; sordid; squalid (foul and run-down and repulsive)

bedraggled; draggled (limp and soiled as if dragged in the mud)

befouled; fouled (made dirty or foul)

begrimed; dingy; grimy; grubby; grungy; raunchy (thickly covered with ingrained dirt or soot)

black; smutty (soiled with dirt or soot)

buggy (infested with bugs)

cobwebby (covered with cobwebs)

dirty-faced (having a dirty face)

feculent (foul with waste matter)

filthy; foul; nasty (disgustingly dirty; filled or smeared with offensive matter)

greasy; oily (smeared or soiled with grease or oil)

Also:

untidy (not neat and tidy)

Attribute:

cleanness (the state of being clean; without dirt or other impurities)

Derivation:

uncleanness (the state of being unsanitary)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Having a physical or moral blemish so as to make impure according to dietary or ceremonial laws

Synonyms:

impure; unclean

Context example:

and the swine...is unclean to you

Similar:

nonkosher; terefah; tref (not conforming to dietary laws)

untouchable ((especially used in traditional Hindu belief of the lowest caste or castes) defiling)

Also:

impure (combined with extraneous elements)

Domain category:

faith; religion; religious belief (a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny)

Antonym:

clean (ritually clean or pure)

Derivation:

uncleanness (the state of being unsanitary)

 Context examples 

It may be spread by unclean food and water, but researchers aren't sure.

(Helicobacter Pylori Infections, NIH: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases)

My surmise was not finished, could not be; for I caught sight in the mirror of the red mark upon my forehead; and I knew that I was still unclean.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The true voodoo-worshipper attempts nothing of importance without certain sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For the rat, mark you, being a foul-living creature, hath a natural drawing or affinity for all foul things, so that the noxious humors pass from the man into the unclean beast.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Device packaging that has been opened purposefully or inadvertently thus exposing the device to the outside environment and rendering it unsterile or unclean (e.g. a broken seal or ripped or torn packaging).

(Device Packaging Compromised Evaluation Result Evaluation Result, Food and Drug Administration)

—‘All is vanity and vexation of spirit,’ ‘There is no profit under the sun,’ ‘There is one event unto all,’ to the fool and the wise, the clean and the unclean, the sinner and the saint, and that event is death, and an evil thing, he says.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Among his minor peculiarities are that he is careless as to his attire, unclean in his person, exceedingly absent-minded in his habits, and addicted to smoking a short briar pipe, which is seldom out of his mouth.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She rose with an ill-favoured smile, and taking a few steps towards a wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice, Come here!—as if she were calling to some unclean beast.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Lucy's eyes in form and colour; but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Then he would pass through the land of the Almains and the great Roman Empire, and so to the country of the Huns and of the Lithuanian pagans, beyond which lies the great city of Constantine and the kingdom of the unclean followers of Mahmoud.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)