clod
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /klɒd/
ipa: /klɑd/
rhymes: -ɒd
Forms: form: clods
Etymology: From Middle English clod, a late by-form of clot, from Old English clot, from Proto-West Germanic *klott (“mass, ball, clump”). Compare clot and cloud; cognate to kloot (“clod”).
Alternatively, Middle English clod may derive from Old English *clod (found in Old English clodhamer (“a kind of thrush”) and Clodhangra (a placename)), from Proto-West Germanic *kloddō (“lump, clod”), from *gel- (“to ball up, become lumpy”), related to West Frisian klodde (“clod, lump”), Dutch klodde (“lump, blob”).
Senses: examples: text: clods of iron and brass
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: 1600, Edward Fairfax (translator), originally published in 1581 by Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered
clods of blood
text: The earth that casteth up from the plough a great clod, is not so good as that which casteth up a smaller clod.
ref: 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:
text: As for yon clod of clay, we will bury it later, lest it should pollute so goodly a pool.
ref: 1903, Warwick Deeping, Uther and Igraine:
text: One of the clods took it back of the ear, and it used language. It gave me a thrill, for it was the first time I had ever heard speech, except my own.
ref: 1906, Mark Twain, Eve's Diary:
text: "What a bunch of hooey," I said under my breath, tossing a dirt clod over my shoulder against the locked-up garden shed.
ref: 2010, Clare Vanderpool, Moon Over Manifest:
glosses: A lump of something, especially earth or clay.
examples: text: the clod where once their sultan's horse hath trod
ref: 1723, Jonathan Swift, Pethox the Great:
glosses: The ground; the earth; a spot of earth or turf.
examples: text: The vulgar, a scarce animated clod
ref: 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, →OCLC, Act I, page 3:
text: 'What was its number?'
'I don't know, sir.'
'You clod! Why didn't you call one of our men, whoever was nearest, and leave him to shadow the American while you followed the cab?'
ref: 1906, Robert Barr, The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont:
text: So here's a valentine for you, you insensitive clod!!
ref: 1986 February 14, Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes:
text: Gerald Broflovski: You see Kyle, we humans work as a society, and in order for a society to thrive, we need gods and clods.
ref: 1998, Chickenpox (episode of South Park TV series)
text: Peridot: Don't touch that! You clods don't know what you're doing!
ref: 2015, "Jail Break" (episode of Steven Universe TV series)
glosses: A stupid person; a dolt.
holonyms: chuck
related: word: chuck roll
glosses: Part of a shoulder of beef, or of the neck piece near the shoulder.
Derived terms: clodcrusher
cloddish
cloddy
clodhopper
clodhopping
clodlet
clodpate
clodpated
clodpole