clearing

Pluralclearings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An open patch of ground inside a wood or forest where no trees grow.

   The hikers reached a wide clearing where sunlight poured through the canopy.

   Wildflowers covered the clearing at the heart of the old forest.

   Similarglade, opening

   Note

   Here the word names a place rather than an action: the land is what has been cleared, and nobody needs to have cleared it. The American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897) shows its natural role in storytelling. The narrator plunges through deep shade and then 'shot into a clearing,' with a sudden view of the lake below. You come upon, reach or emerge into a clearing.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or process of making something clear, or of something becoming clear.

   The clearing of the drains prevented flooding during the heavy storm.

   Doctors recommend gentle clearing of the throat rather than forceful coughing.

   Similarclearance, unblocking

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The process of exchanging transaction information and authorization through a central institution to complete and settle payments.

   The clearing of cross-border payments can involve several intermediary banks.

   Faster clearing of transactions has reduced settlement risk for traders.

   Note

   Finance separates two steps that everyday speech runs together. Clearing works out who owes what: payment instructions are exchanged, authorized and often netted through a central counterparty or system. Settlement is the transfer that follows between the participating institutions. So a payment can be cleared without yet being settled, and careful writers keep the two words apart.

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of clear.

   The workers are clearing debris from the blocked road.

   Clearing the backlog of emails took her all morning.

   Note

   This form does two jobs with one spelling. After a form of be it builds the progressive (they are clearing the road), and on its own it works as a gerund, a verb used like a noun (clearing the backlog took all morning). It follows both kinds of clear: transitive when someone clears something away, intransitive when the sky or water is clearing by itself.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   An open space within fog, mist, or cloud where visibility is good.

   A sudden clearing in the mist revealed the distant mountain peaks.

   Sailors steered toward a clearing in the fog to spot the shoreline.

   Similarbreak, gap, opening

6. 6
   nounBritishuncountable

   In British higher education, the period during which remaining university places are matched to students who have not yet secured one.

   He secured a spot on the engineering course through clearing after his results came out.

   Clearing opens as soon as A-level results are released in mid-August.

   Note

   A British admissions term that behaves almost like a proper name. It usually takes no article: students go through clearing, find a place in clearing, and clearing opens. It begins once exam results are published. It is for applicants who hold no offer or have missed the conditions of the one they had, and universities use it to fill places they still have free.

   She found a place through clearing after missing her offer.

   Clearing gives students without an offer a second chance.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   In soccer, the act of kicking the ball away from the area around one's own goal to relieve pressure.

   The defender's desperate clearing kept the ball out of the net.

   A poor clearing fell straight to an opposing striker.

   Similarclearance

   Note

   A defender's kick that values distance and safety over keeping the ball. The aim is to get it away from goal and relieve the pressure, not to pass to a teammate. Clearance means the same thing and can replace it in any sentence. Both are often paired with words that judge the kick: a desperate clearing, a poor one, a clearing that falls straight to an opponent.

8. 8
   noununcountable

   In telecommunications, the sequence of events that disconnects a call and returns the line to its ready state.

   Proper clearing of the connection frees the channel for new traffic.

   A fault during clearing can leave the line stuck off-hook.

   Note

   Telephone engineers use the word for the end of a call's life: the signaling that releases the connection, frees the channel and puts the circuit back to idle, ready for the next call. It names a defined sequence, not a single instant. That is why engineers can speak of a fault during clearing, one that leaves a line stuck partway through.

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