clear the neighborhood

• clear the neighbourhood

clear the neighborhood (third-person singular simple present clears the neighborhood, present participle clearing the neighborhood, simple past and past participle cleared the neighborhood)

1. (astronomy, of a celestial body) To become gravitationally dominant, such that there are no other bodies of comparable size within its orbit, other than its natural satellites or those otherwise under its gravitational influence.

   Clearing the neighborhood is one of three necessary criteria for a celestial body to be considered a planet in the Solar System, according to the definition adopted in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see clear,‎ the,‎ neighborhood.
   • 2013 February 5, Dennis Mahoney, Fellow Mortals: A Novel, Macmillan, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 73:

     He clears the neighborhood and drives toward the busier part of town, unaware he's doing fifty till he skids to meet a red light.

   • 2014 December 26, Karen R. Miller, Managing Inequality: Northern Racial Liberalism in Interwar Detroit, NYU Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 250:

     Detroit officials could have built the housing projects before they cleared the neighborhood.

   • 2014, Melissa Estes Blair, Revolutionizing Expectations: Women's Organizations, Feminism, and American Politics, 1965-1980, University of Georgia Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 37:

     Since 1969 the group had supported clearing the neighborhood so that a community college could be built on the land.

   • 2019 August 27, William E. Fork, “Haifa Street, Battle of (January 6–9, 2007)”, in Spencer C. Tucker, editor, Middle East Conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection, volume 2, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 496:

     Following an unsuccessful attempt by Iraqi soldiers to clear the neighborhood on January 8, American troops prepared a full-scale offensive to assist the Iraqis.

   • 2021 March 30, Nathaniel Rich, Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade‎, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, →OCLC:

     To visualize how the Lower Ninth looked before the city's formal campaign to clear the neighborhood, you had to understand that it no longer resembled an urban or even suburban environment.

• Pluto, which in 2006 was ruled not to be a planet, because it had not cleared its neighborhood.