CLOG • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Clog

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/klɑg/ Listen

noun

Clog n.

1.

That which hinders or impedes motion; hence, an encumbrance, restraint, or impediment, of any kind. "All the ancient, honest, juridical principles and institutions of England are so many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and opression."

2.

A weight, as a log or block of wood, attached to a man or an animal to hinder motion. "As a dog... but chance breaks loose, And quits his clog." "A clog of lead was round my feet."

3.

A shoe, or sandal, intended to protect the feet from wet, or to increase the apparent stature, and having, therefore, a very thick sole. Cf. Chopine. "In France the peasantry goes barefoot; and the middle sort... makes use of wooden clogs."

Clog almanac, a primitive kind of almanac or calendar, formerly used in England, made by cutting notches and figures on the four edges of a clog, or square piece of wood, brass, or bone; called also a Runic staff, from the Runic characters used in the numerical notation.

Clog dance, a dance performed by a person wearing clogs, or thick-soled shoes.

verb

Clog v. t. (past & past part. clogged; pres. part. clogging)

1.

To encumber or load, especially with something that impedes motion; to hamper. "The winds of birds were clogged with ace and snow."

2.

To obstruct so as to hinder motion in or through; to choke up; as, to clog a tube or a channel.

3.

To burden; to trammel; to embarrass; to perplex. "The commodities are clogged with impositions." "You 'll rue the time That clogs me with this answer."

Synonyms: Impede; hinder; obstruct; embarrass; burden; restrain; restrict.

Clog v. i.

1.

To become clogged; to become loaded or encumbered, as with extraneous matter. "In working through the bone, the teeth of the saw will begin to clog."

2.

To coalesce or adhere; to unite in a mass. "Move it sometimes with a broom, that the seeds clog not together."

See images of 'Clog'

Etymology of 'Clog'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Clog" Quotes from Famous Books

... aloud, "how idiotic men and women can be in their attitude to the supreme things of life. What is of greater importance than the food we eat and the liquors we drink? Through them the body reconstitutes itself hourly and daily. Providence gives us a perfect engine, yet we clog and choke its shafts and cylinders by supplying it haphazard with any sort of fuel and lubricant, no matter how unsuited either may be to its purpose. Take coffee, for instance. The physiological action of coffee ...

— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... Muggin; and crazy old Jimmy Mathison, of nowhere in particular—unless it were the nearest gin bottle; and it was a rip-roaring Christmas, and no mistake, with bottled beer flowing like water, and songs and choruses and clog dances and hornpipes; and Papa Benson (in earrings and pink pajamas) a-blowing enough wind through his concertina to have sailed a ship. And there were girls, too, seven or eight of them, in bright trade-cotton Mother Hubbards—a bevy of black-eyed little ...

— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... something that is made primarily to shoot," he says. "The best gun is the simplest gun. When you begin loading a gun up with a lot of fancy contraptions and 'safety devices,' you are only inviting trouble. You complicate the mechanism and make that many more places for dirt and grit to clog the action. ...

— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... which was set up by the Earth-Current, and burned within a transparent tube; or had that appearance. And it bounded the Pyramid for a clear mile upon every side, and burned for ever; and none of the monsters had power ever to pass across, because of what we did call The Air Clog that it did make, as an invisible Wall of Safety. And it did give out also a more subtile vibration, that did affect the weak Brain-Elements of the monsters and the Lower Men-Brutes. And some did hold that there went from it a further vibration of a greater subtileness that gave a protecting ...

— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... have been accompanied by clapping of hands, to mark the rhythm. There were many actual dances, also, in ancient Egypt, as is fully proven by a number of the old paintings. Some were like our jigs, break-downs, or clog-dances, while others consisted of regular figures, such as forward and back, swing, and so on, the latter kind being restricted to the lower orders. In all of these, women must have taken a large part, and doubtless they were responsible for some of the music. They ...

— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com