clouted; of cream: clotted, by scalding milk. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Nov., 99; Borde, Dyetarie, 267. A Devon word (EDD.).
clowre, grassy surface, turf. In pl. clowres; Golding, Metam. iv. 301. (L. cespite); viii. 756 (L. terram). ME. clowre, grassy ground (Lydgate).
cloy, to prick a horse with a nail in shoeing; ‘I cloye a horse, I drive a nayle in to the quycke of his foote, jencloue’, Palsgrave; to pierce as with a nail, to gore, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 6. 48; to spike a gun, Beaumont and Fl., The False One, v. 4 (Photinus). OF. cloyer (F. clouer), to nail, deriv. of OF. clo (F. clou), a nail.
cloyer, a pick-pocket’s accomplice. (Cant.) Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Moll). See Nares.
cloyne, a clown, rustic. Mirror for Mag., Rivers, st. 44. The word clown (cloyne) was a late introduction from some Low German source, originally meaning ‘clod, lump’, see NED.
cloyne, cloine, to act deceitfully or fraudulently. Bale, Sel. Wks. (ed. 1849, p. 170 (NED.)); to take furtively, to steal away, Phaer, tr. Aeneid, vi. 524; vii. 364. Probably the same word as OF. cluigner, clugner, cluyner (F. cligner), to wink, often as the expression of secret understanding, cunning, or hypocrisy. See NED.
club, a country fellow; ‘Homely and playn clubbes of the countrey’, Udall, tr. of Apoph., Philip, § 14; ‘Hertfordshire clubs and clouted shoon’, Ray, Eng. Proverbs, 310. Cp. ME. clubbyd, ‘rudis’ (Prompt.).
clubfist, a thick-fisted ruffian. Mirror for Magistrates, Sabrine, st. 10.
clubs! A popular cry to call out the London apprentices, who had clubs for their weapons; also, a cry to call out citizens; as in Romeo, i. 1. 80. There are frequent allusions to this cry; ‘Cry clubs for prentices’, Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, v. 2 (All).
clunch, a clodhopper; ‘Casois, a countrey clown, boore, clunch, hinde’, Cotgrave. In prov. use in Cumberland, Lancashire, and E. Yorks. (EDD.). See NED.