i accidentally typed my password in my $ prompt. how do i clear it out?

Have you tried using the left arrow key on your keyboard and holding down the Delete key??

Example:

thanks for replies, but neither of those methods work.

How does it not work? Just using history -d to delete the line with your password should be enough. Or are you looking for the 'clear' command?

'clear' command.

Just delete your bash history completely.

1 members found this post helpful.

I think OP was just wanting it removed from the console screen, not from history. The command clear will clear what's on the screen right now, but it only does it by scrolling the screen up until the command prompt is at the top. That means you can scroll back up using Shift+PgUp, so your password would still be visible. To completely erase the output on the console, you'd need to run reset or close the console.

However, @OP, anything you enter in your command prompt will be saved in bash's history, so it would be saved to a file. The information provided by orbea will allow you to remove just the password from the history, or you could use slackb0t's suggestion and just remove the bash history completely.

2 members found this post helpful.

Or enter a bunch of fake passwords to throw the spies off your track.

ctrl u

or maybe I'm not understanding the question

I would use:

to avoid any typo or similar error

Of course you can delete any line from your .bash_history that you want just like with any other simple text file.
Try it and see

thank you sweeties . .

rm /home/insert your user name/.bash_history

worked just fine.