clearance
noun
Simple meaning
A sale of merchandise.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
klihruhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈklɪɹəns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A permission for a vehicle to proceed, or for a person to travel.
“The plane was given clearance to land.”
The distance between two moving objects, especially between parts of a machine
The act of clearing or something (such as a space) cleared.
The height or width of a tunnel, bridge or other passage, or the distance between a vehicle and the walls or roof of such passage; a gap, headroom.
A permission to have access to sensitive or secret documents or other information.
A permission to use something, usually intellectual property, that is legally, but not otherwise, protected.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The act of clearing or something (such as a space) cleared.
Used this way, clearance is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use clearance
- “The plane was given clearance to land.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A sale to reduce inventory.
A sale to reduce inventory.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.