What is the origin of the expression "clean your clock?"
by 
MarthaStewart
ANSWERS: 1
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In the sense of _to inflict a devastating defeat on you_, _to clean your clock_ goes back at least to 1908; a sports story from the _Trenton Evening Times_ used the phrase "It took the Thistles just one inning to clean the clocks of those Times boys." Variants of this expression, such as _to fix your clock_ as a synonym of _to clean your clock, never did become popular in American English. _To clean out_, _to clean off_, or simply _to clean_ were already used in American English in the 1800's as synonyms for _to vanquish_; we still use _to clean you out_ when we mean _to take away all your money_, at a gambling table or in other contexts. www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-cle1.htm
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