Other forms: cleansing, cleansed, cleanses
To cleanse is to wash the skin thoroughly and gently. Cleanse the face, a gentle cleanser, cleanse and tone.
In skincare it is the first step and a whole product category, and it is the standard word there where wash would sound blunt. Cleanse is also used of wounds, of water and of anything purified. Figuratively it means to rid something of what is unwanted — and ethnic cleansing is a euphemism for a crime, one of the ugliest uses any English word has been put to. Note cleanser, cleansing.
1verbcleanseTo wash the skin or a wound thoroughly.
“The nurse cleansed the wound with salt water before bandaging it.”
2verbridTo rid something of what is unwanted.
“The new filters cleanse the water of harmful chemicals.”
cleanse is a thorough washing.
Old English claensian is clean plus a verb-forming ending. The spelling with s kept the old pronunciation, which is why cleanse does not rhyme with clean.
Proto-West Germanic
*klainisōn
Old English
clǣnsian
Middle English
clensen
English, today
cleanse
From Middle English clensen, from Old English clǣnsian, from Proto-West Germanic klainisōn, from Proto-West Germanic klainī (“clean”). Cognate with West Frisian klinzgje (“to clean, cleanse”), archaic Dutch kleinzen (“to clean, purify”), Middle Low German klênsen, kleinsen, clensen (“to purify”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA