clog

Etymology

Middle English clog (“weight attached to the leg of an animal to impede movement”)

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /klɒɡ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /klɑɡ/, /klɔɡ/

• Rhymes: -ɒɡ

Noun

clog (plural clogs)

1. A type of shoe with an inflexible, often wooden sole sometimes with an open heel.

   Dutch people rarely wear clogs these days.

2. A blockage.

   The plumber cleared the clog from the drain.

3. (Britain, colloquial) A shoe of any type.
   • 1987, Withnail and I:

     Withnail: I let him in this morning. He lost one of his clogs.

4. A weight, such as a log or block of wood, attached to a person or animal to hinder motion.
   • Hudibras

     As a dog […] by chance breaks loose, / And quits his clog.

   • Tennyson

     A clog of lead was round my feet.

5. That which hinders or impedes motion; an encumbrance, restraint, or impediment of any kind.
   • Burke

     All the ancient, honest, juridical principles and institutions of England are so many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression.

Verb

clog (third-person singular simple present clogs, present participle clogging, simple past and past participle clogged)

1. To block or slow passage through (often with 'up').

   Hair is clogging the drainpipe.

   The roads are clogged up with traffic.

2. To encumber or load, especially with something that impedes motion; to hamper.
   • Dryden

     The wings of winds were clogged with ice and snow.

3. To burden; to trammel; to embarrass; to perplex.
   • Addison

     The commodities are clogged with impositions.

   • Shakespeare

     You'll rue the time / That clogs me with this answer.

4. (law) To enforce a mortgage lender right that prevents a borrower from exercising a right to redeem.
   • Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Doerr, 123 N.J. Super. 530, 544, 303 A.2d 898 (1973).

     For centuries it has been the rule that a mortgagor’s equity of redemption cannot be clogged and that he cannot, as a part of the original mortgage transaction, cut off or surrender his right to redeem. Any agreement which does so is void and unenforceable [sic] as against public policy.

Anagrams

• G-LOC

Etymology

From Old Irish cloc, from Late Latin clocca (“bell”) (compare Welsh cloch, Cornish clogh, Breton kloc’h), from Proto-Indo-European *kleg- (“to cry, sound”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [klˠɔɡ]

Noun

clog m (genitive singular cloig, nominative plural cloig)

1. bell
2. clock
3. blowball, clock (of dandelion)
4. blister

Verb

clog (present analytic clogann, future analytic clogfaidh, verbal noun clogadh, past participle clogtha)

1. (intransitive) ring a bell
2. (transitive) stun with noise
3. (intransitive) blister

Mutation

References

• "clog" in Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, An Gúm, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill.
• “clog” in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, Irish Texts Society, 1st ed., 1904, by Patrick S. Dinneen, page 150.
• “clogaim” in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, Irish Texts Society, 1st ed., 1904, by Patrick S. Dinneen, page 151.
• “cloc” in Dictionary of the Irish Language, Royal Irish Academy, 1913–76.

Etymology

From Proto-Brythonic *klog, from Proto-Celtic *klukā. Cognate with Irish cloch, Scottish Gaelic clach.

Noun

clog f (plural clogau)

1. cliff, rockface

Mutation