cliffe, a clef, key, in music. Tr. and Cr. v. 2. 11; Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 1. 159. F. clef.
clift, a cliff. Greene, Orl. Fur. i. 1. 79; p. 90, col. 1; clifte, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 7. 23. The E. Anglian form (EDD.).
clighte; see [clitch].
Clim of the Clough, a proverbially famous archer. Clement of the Glen, in the ballad of Adam Bell. Gascoigne, Flowers, ed. Hazlitt, i. 72; B. Jonson, Alchemist, i (Face). Clem a Clough, Drayton, Pastorals, vi. 36.
clinch; see [clench].
cling, to cause to shrink, shrivel; ‘Till famine cling thee’, Macbeth, v. 5. 40. Cp. prov. use in Ireland and in the north of England, where the word means to wither, contract, also, of cattle, to become thin from want of proper food, see EDD. (s.v. Cling, vb.1 4). ME. clyngyn, to shrink, to shrivel (Prompt.). OE. clingan, ‘marcere’ (Ælfric).
clip, to embrace. Wint. Tale, v. 2. 59; Coriolanus, i. 6. 29; iv. 5. 115. Still in use in various parts of England (EDD.). ME. clippen (Chaucer, Tr. and Cr. lii. 1344). OE. clyppan.
clip, to go fast, to run swiftly. Dryden, Annus Mirab. 86. A Suffolk use; see EDD. (s.v. Clip, vb.2 11).
clipped, uttered aloud; ‘Thy clipped name’, Middleton, The Witch, ii. 2 (near the end). See [clepe].
clips, clyps, ‘eclipse’. Berners, tr. of Froissart, ch. 130. Common in the north (EDD.). ME. Clypps of þe son or þe mone, ‘eclipsis’ (Prompt.).