(not carrying weapons)

clean [kli:n]

propre ⇒ 1 (a) net ⇒ 1 (a)-(e) pur ⇒ 1 (b) adroit ⇒ 1 (f) habile ⇒ 1 (f) nettoyer ⇒ 2 (a), 3 (a) vider ⇒ 2 (b) se nettoyer ⇒ 3 (b) carrément ⇒ 4 (a) nettoyage ⇒ 5

1 adjective

(a) (free from dirt → hands, shirt, room) propre, net; (→ animal, person) propre; (→ piece of paper) vierge, blanc (blanche);

∎ my hands are clean j'ai les mains propres, mes mains sont propres; figurative j'ai la conscience nette ou tranquille;

∎ he made a clean breast of it il a dit tout ce qu'il avait sur la conscience, il a déchargé sa conscience;

∎ he made a clean sweep of the medals/prizes il a raflé toutes les médailles/tous les prix;

∎ the new government made a clean sweep of the legislation introduced by their predecessors (did away with) le nouveau gouvernement a fait table rase des lois votées par le gouvernement précédent

(b) (free from impurities → air) pur, frais (fraîche); (→ water) pur, clair; (→ sound) net, clair

(c) (morally pure → conscience) net, tranquille; (→ joke) qui n'a rien de choquant;

∎ it was all good clean fun c'était une façon innocente de nous amuser;

∎ keep it clean! pas de grossièretés!;

∎ clean living une vie saine

(d) (honourable → fight) loyal; (→ reputation) net, sans tache;

∎ he's got a clean driving licence il n'a jamais eu de contraventions graves;

∎ to have a clean record avoir un casier (judiciaire) vierge;

∎ the doctor gave him a clean bill of health le docteur l'a trouvé en parfaite santé

(e) (smooth → curve, line) bien dessiné, net; (→ shape) fin, élégant; (→ cut) net, franc (franche);

∎ the building has clean lines le bâtiment a de belles lignes;

∎ to make a clean break en finir une bonne fois pour toutes;

∎ we made a clean break with the past nous avons rompu avec le passé, nous avons tourné la page

(f) (throw) adroit, habile

(g) familiar

∎ to be clean (innocent) n'avoir rien à se reprocher^□ ; (without incriminating material) n'avoir rien sur soi^□ ; (not carrying drugs) ne pas avoir de drogue sur soi^□ ; (not carrying weapons) ne pas être armé^□ ; (no longer addicted to drugs) avoir décroché

(h) Nuclear (not radioactive) non radioactif;

∎ a clean bomb une bombe propre ou sans retombées radioactives

2 transitive verb

(a) (room, cooker) nettoyer; (clothing) laver;

∎ I cleaned the mud from my shoes j'ai enlevé la boue de mes chaussures;

∎ to clean one's teeth se laver ou se brosser les dents;

∎ to have one's teeth cleaned se faire faire un détartrage;

∎ to clean the windows faire les vitres ou les carreaux;

∎ American to clean house (do housework) faire du ménage; figurative (restructure system, organization) restructurer

(b) (chicken, fish) vider

3 intransitive verb

(a) (person) nettoyer;

∎ she spends her day cleaning elle passe sa journée à faire le ménage

(b) (carpet, paintbrush) se nettoyer;

∎ this cooker cleans easily ce four est facile à nettoyer ou se nettoie facilement

4 adverb familiar

(a) (completely) carrément^□ ;

∎ the handle broke clean off l'anse a cassé net;

∎ the match burnt a hole clean through the rug l'allumette a fait un trou dans la moquette;

∎ he cut clean through the bone il a coupé l'os de part en part;

∎ the bullet went clean through his chest la balle lui a carrément traversé la poitrine;

∎ the robbers got clean away les voleurs se sont enfuis sans laisser de trace;

∎ we clean forgot about the appointment nous avions complètement oublié le rendez-vous

(b) (idiom)

∎ to come clean about sth révéler qch^□ ;

∎ the murderer finally came clean l'assassin a fini par avouer^□

5 noun

nettoyage m;

∎ the carpet needs a good clean la moquette a grand besoin d'être nettoyée;

∎ I gave my shoes a clean j'ai nettoyé mes chaussures

►► Finance clean bill effet m libre, traite f libre;

Stock Exchange clean float taux mpl de change libres ou flottants;

Typography clean proof (with few corrections) épreuve f peu chargée; (final) épreuve f pour bon à tirer;

clean room Medicine pièce f aseptisée; Computing salle f blanche

➲ clean down separable transitive verb

(wall) laver

➲ clean off separable transitive verb

(a) (mud, stain) enlever

(b) (sofa, table) débarrasser

➲ clean out separable transitive verb

(a) (tidy) nettoyer à fond; (empty) vider

(b) familiar (person) nettoyer, plumer;

∎ we're completely cleaned out nous sommes totalement fauchés;

∎ he cleaned me out il m'a plumé

➲ clean up

1 separable transitive verb

(a) (make clean) nettoyer à fond;

∎ I cleaned the children up as best I could j'ai fait de mon mieux pour débarbouiller les enfants;

∎ clean this mess up! nettoyez-moi ce fouillis!

(b) (make orderly → cupboard, room) ranger; (→ affairs, papers) ranger, mettre de l'ordre dans;

∎ the police intend to clean up the city la police a l'intention d'épurer ou de nettoyer cette ville

2 intransitive verb

(a) (tidy room) nettoyer; (tidy cupboard, desk) ranger; (wash oneself) faire un brin de toilette

(b) familiar (make profit) gagner gros^□ ;

∎ we cleaned up on the deal nous avons touché un gros paquet sur cette affaire, cette affaire nous a rapporté gros

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Weapons and armour

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Maxim was born the son of a pioneer farmer who later became a wood turner. Young Maxim was first apprenticed to a carriage maker and then embarked on a succession of jobs before joining his uncle in his engineering firm in Massachusetts in 1864. As a young man he gained a reputation as a boxer, but it was his uncle who first identified and encouraged Hiram's latent talent for invention.

It was not, however, until 1878, when Maxim joined the first electric-light company to be established in the USA, as its Chief Engineer, that he began to make a name for himself. He developed an improved light filament and his electric pressure regulator not only won a prize at the first International Electrical Exhibition, held in Paris in 1881, but also resulted in his being made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. While in Europe he was advised that weapons development was a more lucrative field than electricity; consequently, he moved to England and established a small laboratory at Hatton Garden, London. He began by investigating improvements to the Gatling gun in order to produce a weapon with a faster rate of fire and which was more accurate. In 1883, by adapting a Winchester carbine, he successfully produced a semi-automatic weapon, which used the recoil to cock the gun automatically after firing. The following year he took this concept a stage further and produced a fully automatic belt-fed weapon. The recoil drove barrel and breechblock to the vent. The barrel then halted, while the breechblock, now unlocked from the former, continued rearwards, extracting the spent case and recocking the firing mechanism. The return spring, which it had been compressing, then drove the breechblock forward again, chambering the next round, which had been fed from the belt, as it did so. Keeping the trigger pressed enabled the gun to continue firing until the belt was expended. The Maxim gun, as it became known, was adopted by almost every army within the decade, and was to remain in service for nearly fifty years. Maxim himself joined forces with the large British armaments firm of Vickers, and the Vickers machine gun, which served the British Army during two world wars, was merely a refined version of the Maxim gun.

Maxim's interests continued to occupy several fields of technology, including flight. In 1891 he took out a patent for a steam-powered aeroplane fitted with a pendulous gyroscopic stabilizer which would maintain the pitch of the aeroplane at any desired inclination (basically, a simple autopilot). Maxim decided to test the relationship between power, thrust and lift before moving on to stability and control. He designed a lightweight steam-engine which developed 180 hp (135 kW) and drove a propeller measuring 17 ft 10 in. (5.44 m) in diameter. He fitted two of these engines into his huge flying machine testrig, which needed a wing span of 104 ft (31.7 m) to generate enough lift to overcome a total weight of 4 tons. The machine was not designed for free flight, but ran on one set of rails with a second set to prevent it rising more than about 2 ft (61 cm). At Baldwyn's Park in Kent on 31 July 1894 the huge machine, carrying Maxim and his crew, reached a speed of 42 mph (67.6 km/h) and lifted off its rails. Unfortunately, one of the restraining axles broke and the machine was extensively damaged. Although it was subsequently repaired and further trials carried out, these experiments were very expensive. Maxim eventually abandoned the flying machine and did not develop his idea for a stabilizer, turning instead to other projects. At the age of almost 70 he returned to the problems of flight and designed a biplane with a petrol engine: it was built in 1910 but never left the ground.

In all, Maxim registered 122 US and 149 British patents on objects ranging from mousetraps to automatic spindles. Included among them was a 1901 patent for a foot-operated suction cleaner. In 1900 he became a British subject and he was knighted the following year. He remained a larger-than-life figure, both physically and in character, until the end of his life.

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See also: Pilcher, Percy Sinclair

CM / JDS

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Weapons and armour

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The son of a coppersmith, as a young man Ernst Heinkel was much affected by seeing the Zeppelin LZ 4 crash and burn out at Echterdringen, near Stuttgart. After studying engineering, in 1910 he designed his first aeroplane, but it crashed; he was more successful the following year when he made a flight in it, with an engine on hire from the Daimler company. After a period working for a firm near Munich and for LVG at Johannisthal, near Berlin, he moved to the Albatros Company of Berlin with a monthly salary of 425 marks. In May 1913 he moved to Lake Constance to work on the design of sea-planes and in May 1914 he moved again, this time to the Brandenburg Company, where he remained as a designer until 1922, when he founded his own company, Ernst Heinkel Flugzeugwerke. Following the First World War, German companies were not allowed to build military aircraft, which was frustrating for Heinkel whose main interest was high-speed aircraft. His sleek He 70 airliner, built for Lufthansa, was designed to carry four passengers at high speeds: indeed it broke many records in 1933. Lufthansa decided it needed a larger version capable of carrying ten passengers, so Heinkel produced his most famous aeroplane, the He 111. Although it was designed as a twin-engined airliner on the surface, secretly Heinkel was producing a bomber. The airliner version first flew on Lufthansa routes in 1936, and by 1939 almost 1,000 bombers were in service with the Luftwaffe. A larger four-engined bomber, the He 177, ran into development problems and it did not see service until late in the Second World War. Heinkel's quest for speed led to the He 176 rocket-powered research aeroplane which flew on 20 June 1939, but Hitler and Goering were not impressed. The He 178, with Dr Hans von Ohain's jet engine, made its historic first flight a few weeks later on 27 August 1939; this was almost two years before the maiden flight in Britain of the Gloster E 28/39, powered by Whittle's jet engine. This project was a private venture by Heinkel and was carried out in great secrecy, so the world's first jet aircraft went almost unnoticed. Heinkel's jet fighters, the He 280 and the He 162, were never fully operational. After the war, Heinkel in 1950 set up a new company which made bicycles, motor cycles and "bubble" cars.

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SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Weapons and armour

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His family came from Germany and he was the son of a music master. He first became interested in science at the age of 14, when visiting his mineralogist uncle in Hamburg, and studied chemistry at the Royal Polytechnic Institution in London. In 1845 he became one of the twenty-six founding students, under A.W.von Hofmann, of the Royal College of Chemistry. Such was his aptitude for the subject that within two years he became von Hermann's assistant and demonstrator. In 1851 Abel was appointed Lecturer in Chemistry, succeeding Michael Faraday, at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and it was while there that he wrote his Handbook of Chemistry, which was co-authored by his assistant, Charles Bloxam.

Abel's four years at the Royal Military Academy served to foster his interest in explosives, but it was during his thirty-four years, beginning in 1854, as Ordnance Chemist at the Royal Arsenal and at Woolwich that he consolidated and developed his reputation as one of the international leaders in his field. In 1860 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, but it was his studies during the 1870s into the chemical changes that occur during explosions, and which were the subject of numerous papers, that formed the backbone of his work. It was he who established the means of storing gun-cotton without the danger of spontaneous explosion, but he also developed devices (the Abel Open Test and Close Test) for measuring the flashpoint of petroleum. He also became interested in metal alloys, carrying out much useful work on their composition. A further avenue of research occurred in 1881 when he was appointed a member of the Royal Commission set up to investigate safety in mines after the explosion that year in the Sealham Colliery. His resultant study on dangerous dusts did much to further understanding on the use of explosives underground and to improve the safety record of the coal-mining industry. The achievement for which he is most remembered, however, came in 1889, when, in conjunction with Sir James Dewar, he invented cordite. This stable explosive, made of wood fibre, nitric acid and glycerine, had the vital advantage of being a "smokeless powder", which meant that, unlike the traditional ammunition propellant, gunpowder ("black powder"), the firer's position was not given away when the weapon was discharged. Although much of the preliminary work had been done by the Frenchman Paul Vieille, it was Abel who perfected it, with the result that cordite quickly became the British Army's standard explosive.

Abel married, and was widowed, twice. He had no children, but died heaped in both scientific honours and those from a grateful country.

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