Did Mercury clear its neighborhood?
One calls Mercury a planet because it doesn't share its orbit with any other bodies of comparative size. The fact that it is in its orbit means that that orbit hasn't been cleared by another body (for if it had been cleared by another planet, then Mercury would have been cleared too.)
In practice one doesn't look at &quot;How&quot; an orbit is cleared, only if there is one body that dominates the orbit, or if there are many with no one body dominating.  So Mercury is clearly much larger than any other bodies in roughly 88 day orbits.  But, (for example) Ceres does not dominate its orbit, as it shares its orbit with Vesta, Pallas and Hygeia and many other asteroids.