How do they clean without washing? Dry cleaning????

Answer 1

Water is wet, other liquids, like acetone are "dry". The story I heard about the origin of dry cleaning is that a man spilled acetone on his wife's grandmother's table cloth and noticed when all the acetone evaporated that the area that had been soaked was cleaner looking than the other areas. In some drycleaning stores you can see the machines that they use to wash the clothes. They look just like a regular washing machine, but they use a "dry" solvent (no longer acetone) instead of water.

Answer 2

"Dry cleaning" can refer to any laundering of clothing that involves a solvent other than water.