[f. CLEANSE v. + -ER1.] gen. One who or that which cleanses.
a. 1000. [Somner has clǽnsere].
1570. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1835), 355. For clensing the howse … xljs. jd. whereof ye dresser and clensers had.
1579. J. Jones, Preserv. Bodie & Soule, I. xviii. 32. The nosethrils clensers of the braine.
1598–9. Bodley, in All Y. Round (1882), July, 519/2. If the cleanser of the Library do his duty.
a. 1661. Holyday, Juvenal, 58/2. In a Bath … two fellows desir’d to borrow his strigil or Cleanser.
1668. Culpepper & Cole, Barthol. Anat., Introd. The Kernels … are vulgarly called Emunctories or Clensers.
1712. Spect., No. 548, ¶ 1. Excellent cleansers of the brain.
1716. Wodrow, Corr. (1843), II. 147. If … oaths be allowed to them for cleansers, the Government … will be much out in their politics.
1817. Act 57 Geo. III., c. xxix. § 59. Scavengers, rakers, or cleansers of the streets.
b. spec. A purgative.
1528. Paynel, Salerne Regim., X iij b. Hony … is a clenser.
1550. Dk. Somerset, in Coverdale, Spir. Perle (1588), Pref. A iv b. All medicines of the soule … not hauing that clenser [faith in Christ] with them, be but overhealers.
1610. Markham, Masterp., I. xciii. 184. Purgations which are the strongest cleansers of the body.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Stinking breath, Give Cleansers inwardly.
