bottom the house

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

bottom the house (third-person singular simple present bottoms the house, present participle bottoming the house, simple past and past participle bottomed the house)

1. (idiomatic, dated) To clean a house from top to bottom; to clean a house extremely thoroughly.
   • 1957, Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy‎^[1], →ISBN:

     The half-length lace curtains keep out most of what little sun there is, but they establish your privacy: the window-ledges and doorsteps scrubbed and yellowed with scouring-stone further establish that you are a 'decent' family, that you believe in 'bottoming' the house each week.

   • 1978, Colin Gordon, A richer dust: echoes from an Edwardian album‎^[2]:

     She had 'bottomed' the house (ie spring-cleaned) and cooked specially for me.

   • 1985, The Raving Beauties, editors, No holds barred‎^[3], →ISBN:

     My mother-in-law pickled walnuts
     and covered floors in rag rugs
     she bottomed the house each spring

Translations

clean a house extremely thoroughly

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Armenian: տունը ոտքից գլուխ մաքրել (tunə otkʻicʻ glux makʻrel)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 徹底打掃房子 / 彻底打扫房子 (chèdǐ dǎsǎo fángzi)

• Czech: gruntovat (cs) impf
• Danish: please add this translation if you can
• Dutch: grote schoonmaak houden
• Finnish: tehdä suursiivous, siivota lattiasta kattoon
• French: nettoyer du sol au plafond
• German: gründlich durchputzen
• Hindi: please add this translation if you can
• Italian: please add this translation if you can
• Japanese: please add this translation if you can
• Korean: please add this translation if you can
• Portuguese: faxinar
• Russian: очисти́ть дом по́лностью (očistítʹ dom pólnostʹju)
• Spanish: limpiar completamente
• Swedish: storstäda (sv)
• Vietnamese: please add this translation if you can

See also

• spring cleaning