bottom the house

present singular third person bottoms the house · participle present bottoming the house · participle past bottomed the house · past bottomed the house

1. datedidiomaticTo clean a house from top to bottom; to clean a house extremely thoroughly.

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

   1978, Colin Gordon, A richer dust: echoes from an Edwardian album

   2 more examples

   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.

   1957, Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy, →ISBN

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

   1985, The Raving Beauties, editors, No holds barred, →ISBN