cleansing

cleansing
    adj 1: cleansing the body by washing; especially ritual washing
           of e.g. hands; "ablutionary rituals" [syn: {ablutionary},
           {cleansing}]
    2: acting like an antiseptic [syn: {cleansing}, {purifying}]
    n 1: the act of making something clean; "he gave his shoes a
         good cleaning" [syn: {cleaning}, {cleansing}, {cleanup}]
    

Cleanse \Cleanse\ (kl[e^]nz), v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Cleansed}
   (kl[e^]nzd); p. pr. & vb. n. {Cleansing}.] [AS. cl[=ae]nsian,
   fr. cl[=ae]ne clean. See {Clean}.]
   To render clean; to free from fith, pollution, infection,
   guilt, etc.; to clean.
   [1913 Webster]

         If we walk in the light . . . the blood of Jesus Christ
         his son cleanseth us from all sin.       --1 John i. 7.
   [1913 Webster]

         Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased,
         And with some sweet oblivious antidote
         Cleanse the suffed bosom of that perilous stuff
         Which weighs upon the heart?             --Shak.
   [1913 Webster]
    

87 Moby Thesaurus words for "cleansing":
      abstergent, abstersion, alleviating, alleviative, analgesic,
      anesthetic, anodyne, apologetic, ascetic, assuasive, atoning,
      balmy, balsamic, benumbing, bowdlerization, catharsis, cathartic,
      cleaning, compensational, compensatory, deadening, deliverance,
      demulcent, depurative, detergent, detersion, discharge, diuretic,
      dry cleaning, dulling, easing, emetic, emollient,
      emotional release, expiatory, expurgation, expurgatory, freeing,
      intermission, lenitive, lustral, lustration, lustrational,
      lustrative, mitigating, mitigative, numbing, pain-killing,
      palliative, penitential, piacular, propitiatory, purgation,
      purgative, purgatorial, purge, purging, purification, purificatory,
      purifying, reclamatory, recompensing, redeeming, redemptive,
      redressing, release, relieving, remedial, removal, reparative,
      reparatory, repentant, repenting, reprieve, respite, restitutional,
      restitutive, restitutory, righting, satisfactional, softening,
      soothing, squaring, steam cleaning, subduing, surcease,
      suspension