Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
CLOSED — CLUTTERING
CLOSED, pp. Shut; made fast; ended; concluded.
CLOSELY, adv.
1. In a close, compact manner; with the parts united, or pressed together, so as to leave no vent; as a crucible closely luted.
2. Nearly; with little space intervening; applied to space or time; as, to follow closely at ones heels; one event follows closely upon another.
3. Intently; attentively; with the mind or thoughts fixed; with near inspection; as, to look or attend closely.
4. Secretly; slyly.
5. With near affection, attachment or interest; intimately; as, men closely connected in friendship; nations closely allied by treaty.
6. Strictly; within close limits; without communication abroad; as a prisoner closely confined.
7. With strict adherence to the original; as, to translate closely.
CLOSENESS, n.
1. The state of being shut, pressed together, or united. Hence according to the nature of the thing to which the word is applied.
2. Compactness; solidity; as the closeness of texture in wood or fossils.
3. Narrowness; straitness; as of a place.
4. Tightness in building, or in apartments; firmness of texture in cloth, etc.
5. Want of ventilation; applied to a close room, or to the air confined in it.
6. Confinement or retirement of a person; recluseness; solitude.
7. Reserve in intercourse; secrecy; privacy; caution.
8. Covetousness; penuriousness.
9. Connection; near union; intimacy, whether of friendship, or of interest; as the closeness of friendship, or of alliance.
10. Pressure; urgency; variously applied; as the closeness of an agreement, or of debate; the closeness of a question or inquiry.
11. Adherence to an original; as the closeness of a version.
CLOSER, n. s as z. A finisher; one who concludes.
CLOSER, a. comp. of close. More close.
CLOSEST, a. superl. of close. Most close. In these words, s has its proper sound.
CLOSET, n. s as z.
1. A small room or apartment for retirement; any room for privacy.
When thou prayest, inter into thy closet. Matthew 6:6.
2. An apartment for curiosities or valuable things.
3. A small close apartment or recess in the side of a room for repositing utensils and furniture.
CLOSET, v.t. s as z. To shut up in a closet; to conceal; to take into a private apartment for consultation.
CLOSETED, pp. s as z. Shut up in a closet; concealed.
CLOSETING, ppr. s as z. Shutting up in a private room; concealing.
CLOSET-SIN, n. Sin committed in privacy.
CLOSH, n. A disease in the feet of cattle, called also the founder.
CLOSING, ppr. s as z. Shutting; coalescing; agreeing; ending.
CLOSING, a. s as z. That ends or concludes; as a closing word or letter.
CLOSING, n. s as z. End; period; conclusion.
CLOSURE, n.
1. The act of shutting; a closing.
2. That which closes, or shuts; that by which separate parts are fastened or made to adhere.
3. Inclosure; that which confines.
4. Conclusion.
CLOT, n. [See Clod.] A concretion, particularly of soft or fluid matter, which concretes into a mass or lump; as a clot of blood. Clod and clot appear to be radically the same word; but we usually apply clod to a hard mass of earth, and clot to a mass of softer substances, or fluids concreted.
CLOT, v.i.
1. To concrete; to coagulate, as soft or fluid matter into a thick, inspissated mass; as milk or blood clots.
2. To form into clots or clods; to adhere; as, clotted glebe.
CLOT-BIRD, n. The common Oenanthe or English Ortolan.
CLOT-BUR, n. Burdock.
CLOTH, n.
1. A manufacture or stuff of wool or hair, or of cotton, flax, hemp or other vegetable filaments, formed by weaving or intertexture of threads, and used for garments or other covering and for various other purposes; as woolen cloth, linen cloth, cotton cloth, hair cloth.
2. The covering of a table; usually called a tablecloth.
3. The canvas on which pictures are drawn.
4. A texture or covering put to a particular use; as a cloth of state.
5. Dress; raiment. [See Clothes.]
6. The covering of a bed.
CLOTHE, v.t. pret. and pp. clothed, or clad. [See Cloth.]
1. To put on garments; to invest the body with raiment; to cover with dress, for concealing nakedness and defending the body from cold or injuries.
The Lord God made coats of skin and clothed them. Genesis 3:21.
2. To cover with something ornamental.
Embroidered purple clothes the golden beds.
But clothe, without the aid of other words, seldom signifies to adorn. In this example from Pope, it signifies merely to cover.
3. To furnish with raiment; to provide with clothes; as, a master is to feed and clothe his apprentice.
4. To put on; to invest; to cover, as with a garment; as, to clothe thoughts with words.
I will clothe her priests with salvation. Psalm 132:16.
Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. Proverbs 23:21.
Let them be clothed with shame. Psalm 35:26.
5. To invest; to surround; to encompass.
The Lord is clothed with majesty. Psalm 93:1.
Thou art clothed with honor and majesty. Psalm 104:1.
6. To invest; to give to by commission; as, to clothe with power or authority.
7. To cover or spread over; as, the earth is clothed with verdure.
CLOTHE, v.i. To wear clothes.
Care no more to clothe and eat.
CLOTHED, pp. Covered with garments; dressed; invested; furnished with clothing.
CLOTHES, n. plu. Of cloth; pronounced cloze.
1. Garments for the human body; dress; vestments; vesture; a general term for whatever covering is worn, or made to be worn, for decency or comfort.
If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. Mark 5:28.
2. The covering of a bed; bed-clothes.
CLOTHIER, n.
1. In English authors, a man who makes cloths; a maker of cloth. In this sense, I believe it is not used in the United States; certainly not in New England.
2. In America, a man whose occupation is to full and dress cloth.
CLOTHING, ppr. Covering with or putting on vestments of any kind; providing with garments; investing; covering.
CLOTHING, n.
1. Garments in general; clothes; dress; raiment; covering.
As for me--my clothing was sackcloth. Psalm 35:13.
2. The art or practice of making cloth.
The king took measures to instruct the refugees from Flanders in the art of clothing.
CLOTH-SHEARER, n. One who shears cloth, and frees it from superfluous nap.
CLOTH-WORKER, n. A maker of cloth.
CLOTPOLL, n. A thickskull; a blockhead. [See Clod-poll.]
CLOTTED, pp. Concreted into a mass; inspissated; adhering in a lump.
CLOTTER, v.i. [from clot.] To concrete or gather into lumps.
CLOTTING, ppr. Concreting; inspissating; forming into clots.
CLOTTY, a. [from clot.] Full of clots, or small hard masses; full of concretions, or clods.
CLOUD, n. [I have not found this word in any other language. The sense is obvious--a collection.]
1. A collection f visible vapor, or watery particles, suspended in the atmosphere, at some altitude. A like collection of vapors near the earth is usually called fog.
I do set my bow in the cloud. Genesis 9:13.
Behold, a white cloud. Revelation 14:14.
2. A state of obscurity or darkness.
3. A collection of smoke, or a dense collection of dust, rising or floating in the air; as a cloud of dust.
A cloud of incense. Ezekiel 8:11.
4. The dark or varied colors, in veins or spots, on stones or other bodies, are called clouds.
5. A great multitude; a vast collection.
Seeing we are encompassed with so great a cloud of witnesses. Hebrews 12:1.
CLOUD, v.t. To overspread with a cloud or clouds; as, the sky is clouded; clouds intercept the rays of the sun. Hence,
2. To obscure; to darken; as, to cloud the day, or truth, or reason.
3. To darken in veins or spots; to variegate with colors; as clouded marble.
4. To make of a gloomy aspect; to give the appearance of sullenness.
What sullen fury clouds his scornful brow.
5. To sully; to tarnish.
CLOUD, v.i. To grow cloudy; to become obscure with clouds; sometimes followed by over; as, the sky clouds over.
CLOUD-ASCENDING, a. Ascending to the clouds.
CLOUD-BERRY, n. A plant, called also knot-berry; Rubus chamaemorus.
CLOUD-BORN, a. Born of a cloud.
CLOUD-CAPT, a. [cloud and cap.] Capped with clouds; touching the clouds; lofty.
The cloud-capt towers.
CLOUD-COMPELLER, n. He that collects clouds; Jove.
CLOUD-COMPELLING, a. Collecting clouds; or driving clouds; as cloud-compelling Jove.
CLOUD-COVERED, a. Enveloped with clouds.
CLOUD-DISPELLING, a. Having power to disperse clouds.
CLOUD-ECLIPSED, a. Eclipsed by a cloud.
CLOUDED, pp. Overcast; overspread with clouds; obscured; darkened; rendered gloomy or sullen; variegated with colored spots or veins.
CLOUDILY, adv. [from cloudy.] With clouds; darkly; obscurely.
CLOUDINESS, n.
1. The state of being overcast with clouds; as the cloudiness of the atmosphere.
2. Obscurity; gloom; want of brightness.
3. Darkness of appearance; variegation of colors in a fossil or other body.
4. Appearance of gloom or sullenness; as cloudiness of aspect.
CLOUDING, ppr. Overspreading with clouds; obscuring; giving an appearance of gloom or sullenness.
CLOUD-KISSING, a. Touching the clouds.
CLOUDLESS, a. Being without a cloud; unclouded; clear; bright; luminous; as cloudless skies.
CLOUD-PIERCING, a. Penetrating or rising above the clouds.
CLOUD-TOPT, a. Having the top covered with a cloud.
CLOUD-TOUCHING, a. Touching the clouds.
CLOUDY, a.
1. Overcast with clouds; obscured with clouds; as a cloudy day; a cloudy sky; a cloudy night.
2. Consisting of a cloud or clouds; as a cloudy pillar. Exodus 33:9.
3. Obscure; dark; not easily understood; as cloudy and confused notions.
4. Having the appearance of gloom; indicating gloom, anxiety, sullenness, or illnature; not open or cheerful; as cloudy looks.
5. Indicating gloom or sullenness; as cloudy wrath.
6. Marked with veins or spots of dark or various hues, as marble.
7. Not bright; as a cloudy diamond.
CLOUGH, n. cluf. A cleft in a hill. In commerce, an allowance of two pounds in every hundred weight, for the turn of the scale, that the commodity may hold out in retailing.
CLOUT, n.
1. A patch; a piece of cloth or leather, etc., to close a breach.
2. A piece of cloth for mean purposes.
3. A piece of white cloth, for archers to shoot at.
4. An iron plate on an axle tree, to keep it from wearing.
5. A small nail
6. In vulgar language, a blow with the hand.
CLOUT, v.t.
1. To patch; to mend by sewing on a piece or patch; as clouted shoon, in Milton. This is the sense as understood by Johnson. Mason understands the word clouted to signify nailed, studded with small nails, from the French clouter, and the following words in Shakespeare, Whose rudeness answered my steps too loud, give some countenance to Masons interpretation. In this case, the verb clout must signify, to nail, or fasten with nails; to stud.
2. To cover with a piece of cloth.
3. To join clumsily; as clouted sentences.
4. To cover or arm with an iron plate.
5. To strike; to give a blow.
Clouted cream, in Gay, is evidently a mistake for clotted cream.
CLOUTED, pp. Patched; mended clumsily; covered with a clout.
CLOUTERLY, a. Clumsy; awkward.
CLUTING, ppr. Patching; covering with a clout.
CLOVE, pret. of cleave.
CLOVE, n. [See Cleave.] A cleft; a fissure; a gap; a ravine. This word, though properly an appellative, is not often used as such in English; bu it is appropriated to particular places, that are real clefts, or which appear as such; as the Clove of Kaaterskill, in the state of New York, and the Stony Clove. It is properly a Dutch word.
CLOVE, n.
1. A very pungent aromatic spice, the flower of the clove-tree, Caryophyllus, a native of the Molucca isles. The tree grows to the size of the laurel, and its bark resembles that of the olive. No verdure is seen under it. At the extremities of its branches are produced vast numbers of flowers, which are at first white, then green, and at last red and hard. These are called cloves.
2. [from cleave.] The parts into which garlic separates, when the outer skin is removed.
3. A certain weight; seven pounds of wool; eight pounds of cheese or butter.
CLOVE-GILLY-GLOWER, n. A species of Dianthus, bearing a beautiful flower, cultivated in gardens; called also Carnation pink.
Note: Some writers suppose that gilly-flower should be written July-flower. [See Clove.]
CLOVEN, pp. of cleave. Divided; parted; pronounced clovn.
CLOVEN-FOOTED, CLOVEN-HOOFED, a. Having the foot or hoof divided into two parts, as the ox; bisulcous.
CLOVER, CLOVER-GRASS, n. A genus of plants, called Trifolium, trefoil, or three-leafed, Fr. trefle. The species are numerous. The red clover is generally cultivated for fodder and for enriching land. The white clover is also excellent food for cattle, either green or dry, and from its flowers the bee collects no small portion of its stores of honey.
To live in clover, is to live luxuriously, or in abundance; a phrase borrowed from the luxuriant growth of clover, and the feeding of cattle in clover.
CLOVERED, a. Covered with clover.
CLOWN, n. A countryman; a rustic; hence, one who has the manners of a rustic; a churl; a man of coarse manners; an ill-bred man.
CLOWNAGE, n. The manners of a clown.
CLOWNERY, n. Ill-breeding; rustic behavior; rudeness of manners.
CLOWNISH, a.
1. Containing clowns; consisting of rustics; as a clownish neighborhood.
2. Coarse; hard; rugged; rough; as clownish hands.
3. Of rough manners; ill-bred; as a clownish fellow.
4. Clumsy; awkward; as a clownish gait.
CLOY, v.t.
1. Strictly, to fill; to glut. Hence, to satisfy, as the appetite; to satiate. And as the appetite when satisfied rejects additional food, hence, to fill to lothing; to surfeit.
Who can cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
2. To spike up a gun; to drive a spike into the vent.
3. In farriery, to prick a horse in shoeing.
[In the two latter senses, I believe the word is little used, and not at all in America.]
CLOYED, pp. Filled; glutted; filled to satiety and lothing; spiked; pricked in shoeing.
CLOYING, ppr. Filling; filling to satety, or disgust.
CLOYLESS, a. That cannot cloy, or fill to satiety.
CLOYMENT, n. Surfeit; repletion beyond the demands of appetite.
CLUB, n.
1. Properly, a stick or piece or wood with one end thicker and heavier than the other, and no larger than can be wielded with the hand.
2. A thick heavy stick, that may be managed with the hand, and used for beating, or defense. In early ages, a club was a principal instrument of war and death; a fact remarkably perpetuated in the accounts which history relates of the achievements of Hercules with his club. Plin. Lib. 7. Ca. 56. This use of the club was the origin of the scepter, as a badge of royalty.
3. The name of one of the suits of cards; so named from its figure.
4. A collection or assembly of men; usually a select number of friends met for social or literary purposes. Any small private meeting of persons.
5. A collection of expenses the expenses of a company, or unequal expenses of individuals, united for the purpose of finding the average or proportion of each individual. Hence the share of each individual in joint expenditure is called his club, that is, his proportion of a club, or joint charge.
6. Contribution; joint charge.
CLUB, v.i.
1. To join, as a number of individuals, to the same end; to contribute separate powers to one end, purpose or effect.
Till grosser atoms, tumbling in the stream
Of fancy, madly met, and clubbed into a dream.
2. To pay an equal proportion of a common reckoning or charge.
CLUB, v.t.
1. To unite different sums of expense, in a common sum or collection, to find the average, that each contributor may pay an equal share.
2. In common parlance, to raise or turn uppermost the britch or club of a musket; as, the soldiers clubbed their muskets.
CLUBBED, pp.
1. Collected into a sum and averaged, as different expenses.
2. United to one end or effect.
3. Shaped like a club.
4. Having the britch turned upwards, as a musket.
5. Heavy like a club.
CLUBBER, CLUBBIST, n. One who belongs to a party, club or association.
CLUBBING, ppr. Joining in a club; uniting to a common end.
CLUB-FIST, n. A large heavy fist.
CLUB-FISTED, a. Having a large fist.
CLUB-FOOTED, a. Having short or crooked feet.
CLUB-HEADED, a. Having a thick head.
CLUB-LAW, n. Government by clubs, or violence; the use of arms, or force, in place of law; anarchy.
CLUB-ROOM, n. The apartment in which a club meets.
CLUB-RUSH, n. A genus of plants, the Scirpus.
CLUB-SHAPED, a. Shaped like a club; growing thicker towards the top; clavated.
CLUCK, v.i. To make the noise, or utter the voice of the domestic hen, when sitting on eggs for hatching, and when conducting her chickens. This voice, with the change of the vowel, is precisely our word clack and clock, and is probably an onomatopy. [See Clack and Clock.]
CLUCK, v.t. To call chickens by a particular sound.
CLUCKING, ppr. Uttering the voice of a sitting hen; calling chickens.
CLUE. [See Clew.]
CLUMP, n.
1. A thick, short piece of wood, or other solid substance; a shapeless mass. Hence clumper, a clot or clod.
2. A cluster of trees or shrubs; formerly written plump. In some parts of England, it is an adjective signifying lazy, unhandy.
CLUMPS, n. [from clump.] A stupid fellow; a numskull.
CLUMSILY, adv. [from clumsy.] In a clumsy manner; awkwardly; in an unhandy manner; without readiness, dexterity or grace.
CLUMSINESS, n. The quality of being short and thick, and moving heavily; awkwardness; unhandiness; ungainliness; want of readiness, nimbleness or dexterity.
CLUMSY, a. s as z. [from clump, lump.]
1. Properly, short and thick, like a clump or lump. Hence,
2. Moving heavily, slowly or awkwardly; as clumsy fingers.
3. Awkward; ungainly; unhandy; artless; without readiness, dexterity or grace; as a clumsy man; a clumsy fellow.
4. Ill-made; badly constructed; as a clumsy garment; clumsy verse.
CLUNCH, n. Among miners, indurated clay, found in coal pits next to the coal.
CLUNG, pret. and pp. of cling, which see.
CLUNG, v.i. To shrink. See Cling.
CLUNIAC, n. One of a reformed order of Benedictine monks, so called from Cluni in Burgundy.
CLUSTER, n.
1. A bunch; a number of things of the same kind growing or joined together; a knot; as a cluster of raisins.
2. A number of individuals or things collected or gathered into a close body; as a cluster of bees; a cluster of people.
3. A number of things situated near each other; as a cluster of governments in Italy.
CLUSTER, v.i.
1. To grow in clusters; to gather or unite in a bunch, or bunches; as, clustering grapes.
2. To form into flakes; as, clustering snow.
3. To collect into flocks or crowds.
CLUSTER, v.t. To collect into a bunch or close body.
CLUSTERED, pp. Collected into a cluster, or crowd; crowded.
CLUSTER-GRAPE, n. A small black grape.
CLUSTERING, ppr. Growing in a cluster or in bunches; uniting in a bunch, or in a flock, crowd, or close body.
CLUSTERY, a. Growing in clusters. Full of clusters.
CLUTCH, v.t.
1. To double in the fingers and pinch or compress them together; to clinch. [If n is not radical in clinch, this may be from the same root.]
2. To seize, clasp or gripe with the hand; as, to clutch a dagger; to clutch prey.
3. To seize, or grasp; as, to clutch the globe at a grasp.
CLUTCH, n. A griping or pinching with the fingers; seizure; grasp.
CLUTCHES, plu.
1. The paws or talons of a rapacious animal, as of a cat or dog.
2. The hands, in the sense of rapacity or cruelty, or of power.
CLUTTER, n.
1. A heap or assemblage of things lying in confusion; a word of domestic application.
He saw what a clutter there was with huge pots, pans and spits.
2. Noise; bustle. [This sense seems allied to clatter, but it is not the sense of the word in N. England.]
CLUTTER, v.t. To crowd together in disorder; to fill with things in confusion; as, to clutter a room; to clutter the house.
CLUTTER, v.i. To make a bustle, or fill with confusion.
[The English lexicographers explain this word by noise and bustle; but probably by mistake.]