clunch, to clench; ‘His fist is clunched’, Earle, Microcosmographie, § 20; ed. Arber, p. 41.
clunged, drawn together by the action of cold; ‘By the Northern winds . . . clunged and congealed withall’, Holland, Pliny, i. 513; ‘The Earth made clunged with the cold of winter’, B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (NED.).
cluttered, clotted. Marston, Antonio, Pt. II, i. 2 (Alberto); ‘Engrommelé, clotted, cluttered, curded thick’, Cotgrave. In prov. use in Cheshire and Shropshire (EDD.). See [clottered].
cly (thieves’ cant), to seize, take; to steal (NED.). Phr. to cly the Jerk, to be whipped, B. Jonson, Gipsies Metamorphosed (Jackman); Harman, Caveat, p. 84. In Lower Rhenish dialect klauen (kläuen, kleuen) is used in the sense of ‘steal’. See NED.
coals: phr. to carry coals, to be very servile, to submit to insults. Romeo, i. 1. 2. See [colcarrier].
coal-sleck, coal-dust. Drayton, Pol. iii. 280. Cp. prov. E. sleck, slack, small coal.
coart, to confine, restrain; ‘Streatly coarted’, Skelton, Why come ye not, 438; Sir T. Elyot, Governour, i. 138. L. co-arctare, to compress, from arctus, close.
coast, cost(e, the side. Spenser, M. Hubberd, 294; the border, frontier of a country, Bible, Mark vii. 31; Judges i. 18; phr. on even coast, on even terms, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3. 17. OF. coste (F. côte).
coast, to keep by the side of a person moving. Fletcher and Rowley, Maid Mill, i. 1; to march on the flank of, Berners, Froissart, i. 40. 55; to move in a roundabout course, fig. Hen. VIII, iii. 2. 38; to skirt, Milton, P. L. iv. 782; spelt cost, to approach, Spenser, Daphnaida, st. 6; Venus and Adonis, 870.
coat; see [cote].