club
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: klŭb
ipa: /klʌb/
ipa: /klʊb/
rhymes: -ʌb
Forms: form: clubs
form: clubbing
form: clubbed
form: clubbed
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English clubbe, from Old Norse klubba, klumba (“cudgel”), from Proto-Germanic *klumpô (“clip, clasp; clump, lump; log, block”). Cognate with English clump, cloud, Latin globus, glomus; and perhaps related to Middle Low German kolve (“bulb”), German Kolben (“butt, bulb, club”).
Senses: examples: text: He clubbed the poor dog.
text: "We must club the seals," I announced, when convinced of my poor marksmanship. "I have heard the sealers talk about clubbing them."
ref: 1904, Jack London, chapter 30, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC:
glosses: To hit with a club.
examples: text: [Andy] Murray dropped serve only once in the match, in the 10th game of the third set, and was simply too good for [Stan] Wawrinka, who was left confused by the variety, inventiveness and power hitting of Murray from deep in the court as an opponent who clubbed [Novak] Djokovic in last year's final was simply overwhelmed despite the Parisian crowd attempting to inspire a comeback.
ref: 2016 June 3, “Andy Murray enjoys stunning win against Stan Wawrinka to reach first French Open final”, in Eurosport:
text: Playing with freedom and no fear, Ashleigh Barty has powered into the Australian Open third round without even a coach. Barty clubbed China’s Yafan Wang 6-2, 6-3 on Wednesday before revealing she had been largely flying solo during her charge to the last 32 for only the second time.
ref: 2019 January 16, “Ashleigh Barty loses coach but wins latest Australian Open encounter”, in The Guardian:
glosses: To score a victory over by a large margin.
examples: text: Till grosser atoms, tumbling in the stream / Of fancy, madly met, and clubb'd into a dream.
ref: 1687, [John Dryden], “(please specify the page number)”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC:
glosses: To join together to form a group.
examples: a medical condition with clubbing of the fingers and toes
glosses: To combine into a club-shaped mass.
examples: text: We went clubbing in Ibiza.
text: When I was younger, I used to go clubbing almost every night.
text: In London you lived on beans, but you clubbed all night
ref: 1997, Sarah Penny, The whiteness of bones, page 4:
text: I was rarely there —I was clubbing at night, sleeping during the day, back and forth to L.A.—but I had more money than I knew what to do with.
ref: 2011, Mackenzie Phillips, High on Arrival:
text: He had been clubbing until the early hours
ref: 2013, Fabrice Humbert, Sila's Fortune:
glosses: To go to nightclubs.
examples: text: The owl, the raven, and the bat / Clubb'd for a feather to his hat.
ref: 1730, Jonathan Swift, Death and Daphne:
glosses: To pay an equal or proportionate share of a common charge or expense.
examples: to club the expense
glosses: To raise, or defray, by a proportional assessment.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To drift in a current with an anchor out.
examples: text: To club a battalion implies a temporary inability in the commanding officer to restore any given body of men to their natural front in line or column.
ref: 1876, Major-General G. E. Voyle; Captain G. De Saint-Clair-Stevenson, F.R.G.S., A Military Dictionary, Comprising Terms, Scientific and Otherwise, Connected with the Science of War, Third Edition, London: William Clowes & Sons, page 80:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: To throw, or allow to fall, into confusion.
examples: text: to club exertions
text: For instance, let us suppose that Homer and Virgil, Aristotle and Cicero, Thucydides and Livy, could have met all together, and have clubbed their several talents to have composed a treatise on the art of dancing: I believe it will be readily agreed they could not have equalled the excellent treatise which Mr Essex hath given us on that subject, entitled, The Rudiments of Genteel Education.
ref: 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:
text: You see a person, who, added to yourself, would make, you think, a glorious being, and you proceed to idealize accordingly; you stand on his head, and outtower the tallest; you club your brains with his, and are wiser than the wisest; you add the heat of your heart to his, and produce a very furnace of love.
ref: 1854, The Eclectic Review, page 147:
glosses: To unite, or contribute, for the accomplishment of a common end.
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: To turn the breech of (a musket) uppermost, so as to use it as a club.
Derived terms: club together
clubbing
go clubbing