'To clear the land' definitions:

Definition of 'To clear the land'

From: GCIDE
  • Clear \Clear\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Cleared; p. pr. & vb. n. Clearing.]
  • 1. To render bright, transparent, or undimmed; to free from clouds. [1913 Webster]
  • He sweeps the skies and clears the cloudy north. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
  • 2. To free from impurities; to clarify; to cleanse. [1913 Webster]
  • 3. To free from obscurity or ambiguity; to relive of perplexity; to make perspicuous. [1913 Webster]
  • Many knotty points there are Which all discuss, but few can clear. --Prior. [1913 Webster]
  • 4. To render more quick or acute, as the understanding; to make perspicacious. [1913 Webster]
  • Our common prints would clear up their understandings. --Addison [1913 Webster]
  • 5. To free from impediment or incumbrance, from defilement, or from anything injurious, useless, or offensive; as, to clear land of trees or brushwood, or from stones; to clear the sight or the voice; to clear one's self from debt; -- often used with of, off, away, or out. [1913 Webster]
  • Clear your mind of cant. --Dr. Johnson. [1913 Webster]
  • A statue lies hid in a block of marble; and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter. --Addison. [1913 Webster]
  • 6. To free from the imputation of guilt; to justify, vindicate, or acquit; -- often used with from before the thing imputed. [1913 Webster]
  • I . . . am sure he will clear me from partiality. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
  • How! wouldst thou clear rebellion? --Addison. [1913 Webster]
  • 7. To leap or pass by, or over, without touching or failure; as, to clear a hedge; to clear a reef. [1913 Webster]
  • 8. To gain without deduction; to net. [1913 Webster]
  • The profit which she cleared on the cargo. --Macaulay. [1913 Webster]
  • To clear a ship at the customhouse, to exhibit the documents required by law, give bonds, or perform other acts requisite, and procure a permission to sail, and such papers as the law requires.
  • To clear a ship for action, or To clear for action (Naut.), to remove incumbrances from the decks, and prepare for an engagement.
  • To clear the land (Naut.), to gain such a distance from shore as to have sea room, and be out of danger from the land.
  • To clear hawse (Naut.), to disentangle the cables when twisted.
  • To clear up, to explain; to dispel, as doubts, cares or fears. [1913 Webster]