Cleaning is a more general action, meaning to remove the dirt from something –
for example, you clean your glasses by wiping them with a cloth. To clean can
also refer to removing items that are out of place – for example, if you clean
your room, you put things away in their proper places.
Washing is a specific type of cleaning that uses water, usually by totally
covering something in water – for example, you wash your hands by using water
and soap. You also wash the dishes, wash your face, and wash your hair in the
shower.
Sometimes cleaning does involve water. If you
clean the bathroom, you might clean the floor by mopping it using water.
Finally, clean can also be an adjective, meaning
“without dirt” – we can say “the bathroom is clean” and “my hands are clean”
after we have cleaned the bathroom and washed our hands.
Wash
Up, Clean Up, Clean Out, Clean Off
What about phrasal verbs with wash and clean?
We can use wash up to refer to washing one’s hands and
face – ex) if your kids have been playing outside, you might ask them to wash
up before dinner. Sometimes wash up is also used for washing the dishes after a
meal. Ex) if you are having lunch at someone’s house, you might offer to help
wash up afterwards.
We often use clean up to talk about cleaning messes completely. If you spill
juice all over the table, you would need to clean up the juice. Sometimes clean
and clean up can be used interchangeably – your mother could tell you to “Clean
your room” or “Clean up your room.” When talking about the mess itself, though,
we usually use clean up – ex. Clean up the sauce
you spilled on the stove.
Clean
out can be used for cleaning the inside of a space, and clean off can
be used for surfaces. You would clean out your purse, and clean off the table
if there are papers and books covering it.
There’s
also a slang meaning for clean up – to get a large profit (a lot of
money), often in a short time period. If your son is selling ice-cold lemonade
on a very hot summer day, and he sells $500 in two hours, you could say “He
really cleaned up!”
There’s
a slang meaning for clean out that is also related to money – it
refers to causing someone to lose or spend all their money. If you had a
savings account with $2,000, but then you need car repairs costing $1,800, you
could say “Those car repairs cleaned me out.”
Finally,
we have a more informal meaning for the expression “washed up” or “all washed up”
– it means someone or something is no longer successful or useful. If there’s
an athlete who used to be at the top of his sport, but now he is getting older
and failing to win competitions, you could describe him as “all washed up.”
Note: this is negative and would be rude to say directly to someone.