clod

From Middle English clod, clodde, cludde, from Old English clod, clodd (attested in compounds and placenames), from Proto-Germanic *klut-, *klūtaz (“mass, ball, clump”), related to clot and cloud. Cognate to Dutch klodde (“rag”) and kloot (“clod”).

• Rhymes: -ɑːd
• (UK) IPA^(key): /klɒd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /klɑd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒd

clod (plural clods)

1. A lump of something, especially of earth or clay.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     clods of iron and brass

   • (Can we date this quote?) E. Fairfax

     clods of blood

   • (Can we date this quote?) Francis Bacon

     The earth that casteth up from the plough a great clod, is not so good as that which casteth up a smaller clod.

   • (Can we date this quote?) T. Burnet

     this cold clod of clay which we carry about with us

   • (Can we date this quote?) Mark Twain, Eve's Diary

     One of the clods took it back of the ear, and it used language. It gave me a thrill, for it was the first time I had ever heard speech, except my own.

   • 2010, Clare Vanderpool, Moon Over Manifest

     "What a bunch of hooey," I said under my breath, tossing a dirt clod over my shoulder against the locked-up garden shed.

2. The ground; the earth; a spot of earth or turf.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Jonathan Swift

     the clod where once their sultan's horse has trod

3. A stupid person; a dolt.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of John Dryden to this entry?)

   • 1998, "Chickenpox" (episode of South Park TV series)

     Gerald Broflovski: You see Kyle, we humans work as a society, and in order for a society to thrive, we need gods and clods.

   • 2015, "Jail Break" (episode of Steven Universe TV series)

     Peridot: Don't touch that! You clods don't know what you're doing!

4. Part of a shoulder of beef, or of the neck piece near the shoulder.

clod (third-person singular simple present clods, present participle clodding, simple past and past participle clodded)

1. (transitive) To pelt with clods.

   Mark Twain : "Eve's Diary"

   "When I went there yesterday evening in the gloaming it had crept down and was trying to catch the little speckled fishes that play in the pool, and I had to clod it to make it go up the tree again and let them alone."

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Jonson to this entry?)

2. (transitive, Scotland) To throw violently; to hurl.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Sir Walter Scott to this entry?)

3. To collect into clods, or into a thick mass; to coagulate; to clot.
   • G. Fletcher

     Clodded in lumps of clay.

• cold