Chapter Clean-cut to Cleat of C by Webster's Dictionary (1913 Edition)

a ship for action

, orTo 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.

Clear
(Clear) v. i.

1. To become free from clouds or fog; to become fair; — often followed by up, off, or away.

So foul a sky clears not without a storm.
Shak.

Advise him to stay till the weather clears up.
Swift.

2. To disengage one's self from incumbrances, distress, or entanglements; to become free. [Obs.]

He that clears at once will relapse; for finding himself out of straits, he will revert to his customs; but he that cleareth by degrees induceth a habit of frugality.
Bacon.

3. (Banking) To make exchanges of checks and bills, and settle balances, as is done in a clearing house.

4. To obtain a clearance; as, the steamer cleared for Liverpool to-day.

To clear out, to go or run away; to depart. [Colloq.]

Clearage
(Clear"age) n. The act of removing anything; clearance. [R.]

Clearance
(Clear"ance) n.

1. The act of clearing; as, to make a thorough clearance.

2. A certificate that a ship or vessel has been cleared at the customhouse; permission to sail.

Every ship was subject to seizure for want of stamped clearances.
Durke

3. Clear or net profit. Trollope.

4. (Mach.) The distance by which one object clears another, as the distance between the piston and cylinder head at the end of a stroke in a steam engine, or the least distance between the point of a cogwheel tooth and the bottom of a space between teeth of a wheel with which it engages.

Clearance space (Steam engine), the space inclosed in one end of the cylinder, between the valve or valves and the piston, at the beginning of a stroke; waste room. It includes the space caused by the piston's clearance and the space in ports, passageways, etc. Its volume is often expressed as a certain proportion of the volume swept by the piston in a single stroke.

Clear-cut
(Clear"-cut`) a.

1. Having a sharp, distinct outline, like that of a cameo.

She has . . . a cold and clear-cut face.
Tennyson.

2. Concisely and distinctly expressed.

Clearedness
(Clear"ed*ness) n. The quality of being cleared.

Imputed by his friends to the clearedness, by his foes to the searedness, of his conscience.
T. Fuller.