neatened

Neatened is the past tense and past participle of the verb neaten, meaning to make something neat, tidy, orderly, or smooth. It can describe actions that improve appearance or presentation by removing clutter, smoothing surfaces, finishing edges, or correcting formatting. The action is typically transitive: a person neatened something, such as a room, a desk, a garment, or a manuscript.

The verb neaten is formed from neat with the suffix -en and is used in various contexts, including housekeeping, sewing, carpentry, and editing. In practical use, it is common to say neatened up, especially in everyday speech, though neatening is also found in more formal or instructional text. In editing or typesetting, neatening a page might involve adjusting margins, line breaks, and spacing to improve readability.

Examples: "She neatened the desk before the meeting." "The tailor neatened the raw edges of the fabric." "The editor neatened the page by better aligning columns." "He neatened up the cluttered workspace." The term is somewhat specialized and may be more common in British English or in contexts dealing with manual tasks, crafts, or formal writing, rather than in casual American usage where tidy or straighten is often preferred. Related forms include neatening (present participle) and the noun neatness, which describes the quality rather than the act.