Clinching

adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A clinch; a passionate embrace. countable, uncountable

    "Though there are no kissings and clinchings, […]"

  2. 2
    A making certain or finalizing. countable, uncountable

    "Only six weeks into the season, the top-ranked Bulldogs were undefeated at 60, but more important to Louisiana Tech was one of the earliest clinchings of a conference title in the annals of college football."

  3. 3
    The distortion of computer tape by wrinkling. countable, historical, uncountable

    "This “clinching” can distort the tape by causing a series of creases or folds in the surface and may produce read errors."

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of clinch form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    That settles something (such as an argument) definitely and conclusively.

    "‘Yes,’ said Dick, with such a clinching period at the end that it seemed he was never going to add another word."

Synonyms

All synonyms
clampclaspclenchclenchclenchhug

Example

More examples

"You could tell they were angry by the clinching of their fists."

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