clough

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English clough, also clogh, cloh, cluf, clou and clew,^[2][3] inherited from Old English *clōh,^[4][2][3][5] a word recorded in Old English only in place names,^[6][7][8][9] from Proto-West Germanic *klą̄h (“cleft, sluice, abyss”).^[1] The OED holds that the Old English form is shown by the many old place names that begin or end with the word.^[4] In place names the word is common north of Staffordshire and Derbyshire, as in Cloughton in the North Riding of Yorkshire, Clotton in Cheshire and Catcleugh in Northumberland.^[10] It is probably the same word as Old High German klāh, found only in a place name,^{[4][3][5][11]} and is related by ablaut to chlingo and klinga (“ravine, mountain stream”), the source of the dialect word German Klinge (“ravine”).^{[4][3][7][8][12]} Hoad and Klein reconstruct a Germanic stem Proto-Germanic *klanh-,^[7][5] and the OED, following A. L. Mayhew (1889), a pre-Germanic root Proto-Indo-European *glenk-.^[4] Klein thinks it probably imitative and compares clink,^[5] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged suggests a relation to cling.^[3] The OED rejects any connection with Icelandic klofi or Dutch kloof (“cleft, rift”), an idea it puts down to the way the word is pronounced in Lancashire,^[4] although Wiktionary allows that Old Norse klofi (“a cleft in a hill, ravine”) may have influenced the word.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A narrow valley or ravine: about 1330, in Sir Tristrem, in the line "Into a grisly clouȝ".^[4][2] Earlier, the word appears in place names in Latin documents, such as Clochton (1231), Clouchton (1322) and Cloghton (1368) in the North Riding of Yorkshire.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word could also mean the steep side of a gorge, or a cliff,^[2][4] a sense the Shorter Oxford calls long obsolete except in Scots.^[8] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the cleft of a hill; a cliff", adding that in compounds it meant a hilly place.^[13] By the 19th century it was a dialect word: the English Dialect Dictionary records it in Scotland, Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire, for a ravine, a narrow glen or a deep wooded valley, with the Scots forms cleuch and cleugh (as in Walter Scott's The Black Dwarf, 1816), Lancashire cloof and North Yorkshire clufe.^[12] In Cheshire it named ravines such as Pigeon House Clough and Bowshot Clough, and Selkirk had the compound cleuch brae, a rock overhanging a ravine.^[12] Collins now labels it a dialect word.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1330 – a ravine or steep-sided valley, in Sir Tristrem.^[4][2]
• 1375 – the Scots form clewch, in Barbour's Bruce.^[12]
• c. 1440 – the steep side of a gorge; a cliff.^[2] The OED records this sense from the Wars of Alexander (1400–50) and marks it obsolete after 1500.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly Northern English and Scotland) A narrow, steep-sided valley or ravine, usually with a stream running through it: They followed the beck up the clough to the moor.^{[14][3][4][12]}
2. (obsolete) A cliff or the steep side of a gorge.^[4][2][8]

Related words

• cling

Usage notes

It is pronounced /klʌf/ or, less often, /klaʊ/.^[4][3] Johnson (1755) also had a commercial clough, an allowance of two pounds in every hundredweight for the turn of the scale.^[13] The English Dialect Dictionary records two other dialect words spelled clough: in Northamptonshire a large shallow earthenware pan for salting meat, and in the North and Cumberland the stem of a tree where it divides into branches.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Smith, A. H. (1956), English Place-Name Elements, 2 vols. (English Place-Name Society 25–26), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d e f 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)
13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins