Clavigerous

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Bearing a club. not-comparable

    "It seems probable that the famous 'Cerne Giant'—a colossal human figure wielding a club—which is cut in the chalk on the hill-side east of Cerne Abbas in Dorsetshire, may belong to the Bronze Age and be connected with phallus-worship. […] it is petrographic, colossal, nude, ithyphallic, and clavigerous; and that ' forms which possess these five characteristics have been found in the rock carvings of Scandinavia ... and belong only to the Bronze Age and to its overlap with the Early Age of Iron'."

  2. 2
    Bearing a key. not-comparable

    "Is it really more knowledge we want, or more understanding? Are we in fact clavigerous and fail to realize the aperient properties of that which is in our hand?"

  3. 3
    Club-like. not-comparable

    "Histioteuthids.—Teuthidoid Decaceres with the six upper arms connected by a very extensive web, without lachrymal sinuses, a siphon without valve or dorsal bridle, without nuchal crests, long claviegerous tentacular arms "bearing large central, and small marginal suckers and tubercles." buccal membrane "with six smooth lobes," and with four buccal aquiferous openings."

Example

More examples

"It seems probable that the famous 'Cerne Giant'—a colossal human figure wielding a club—which is cut in the chalk on the hill-side east of Cerne Abbas in Dorsetshire, may belong to the Bronze Age and be connected with phallus-worship. […] it is petrographic, colossal, nude, ithyphallic, and clavigerous; and that ' forms which possess these five characteristics have been found in the rock carvings of Scandinavia ... and belong only to the Bronze Age and to its overlap with the Early Age of Iron'."

Etymology

From claviger + -ous.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.