clod

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English clod, also clodde and cludde,^[2] probably inherited from Old English clod-, recorded in the compound clodhamer (“fieldfare”)^{[3][4][2][5][6]} and the place name “Clodhangra”,^[7][8] from Proto-Germanic *kludda-.^[3][4] Etymonline traces it further to Proto-Indo-European *gleu-,^[3] and Barnhart to *glut-.^[4] The OED, the American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster and the Shorter Oxford instead treat it as a 14th-century variant of clot,^{[7][9][10][11][12]} although the OED itself allows that the Old English compound shows the form to be old in Germanic.^[7] Klein calls the Old English element a collateral form of clott (“lump”),^[13] and Collins and Skeat connect it with cloud.^[14][15] Weekley compares Dutch kloot and German Klotz.^[16][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A clot, especially of blood: 1398, as cludde in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew's De Proprietatibus Rerum.^[7][4] The sense of a lump of earth follows about 1420 in the Middle English Palladius on Husbondrie,^[7] and the spelling clodde in the Promptorium Parvulorum, about 1440.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Clod and clot were long interchangeable,^[7][16] until the 18th century separated them into a clod of earth and a clot of blood;^[3][7][16] the blood sense of clod last appears in 1739.^[7] Because a clod was mere earth, Spenser could use it in 1595 for the human body or a person as a thing of clay.^[7][4] A little later it became an insult for a dull, stupid person: Ben Jonson has it in Every Man Out of his Humour (1599) and Volpone.^[17][4] It was used from 1601 for a coarse cut from the neck and shoulder of an ox.^[7][10] The verb began about 1420 as a farming word, to break up clods or cover something with them.^[7][3] From 1709 in British and American dialect it meant to pelt with clods.^[7][10] In English dialect a clod could be a piece of peat or turf, or a particular patch of ground: in south Lancashire home was th' owd clod.^[18] In tramps' slang of the early 20th century clods were copper coins, from rhyming slang clodhopper, copper.^[17][7]

Timeline

• 1398 – a clot, especially of blood (obsolete by 1739).^[7][4]
• c. 1420 – a lump of solid matter; verb, to clear land of clods.^[7]
• c. 1440 – a lump of earth, as clodde.^[7][4][2]
• 1557 – earth as a substance, the ground.^[7]
• 1595 – the human body or a person, as mere clay.^[7][4]
• 1599 – a stupid person.^[17] The OED has it from 1607 and Barnhart from 1605.^[7][4]
• 1601 – a cut of beef from the neck and shoulder.^[7]
• 1709 – verb, to pelt with clods.^[7]
• 1910 – a copper coin.^[17] The OED has this from 1925.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A lump of earth, turf or clay: The plough turned up heavy clods.^[14][10][7]
2. Earth or soil, especially in hard lumps; the ground.^[14][10][7]
3. A dull, stupid person; a dolt.^[14][10][7]
4. A cut of beef from the shoulder or the neck next to it.^[14][10][7]
5. Soft shale, especially over a coal seam.^[10]
6. (slang) A copper coin, usually in the plural.^[7][17]
7. (obsolete, 1398–1739) A clot, especially of blood.^[7][10][11]

Verb

1. (dialect) To pelt with clods, or to drive something off by pelting it.^[10][7]
2. To form into clods.^[10][7]

Word family

• cloddish
• cloddishly
• cloddishness
• cloddy
• cloddily
• cloddiness
• clodlike
• clodhopper

Related words

• clot
• cloud
• clew
• cleat
• clay
• clodpate
• clodpoll

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
17. ^ a b c d e Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)