Clod
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A lump of something, especially earth or clay.
"clods of iron and brass"
- 2 a compact mass wordnet
- 3 The ground; the earth; a spot of earth or turf.
"the clod where once their sultan's horse hath trod"
- 4 an awkward stupid person wordnet
- 5 A stupid person, a dolt, a clodpate, a clodhopper.
"The vulgar, a scarce animated clod"
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- 6 Part of a shoulder of beef, or of the neck piece near the shoulder.
- 1 To pelt with clods. transitive
""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.""
- 2 To throw violently; to hurl. Scotland, transitive
""So, sir, she grippit him, and clodded him like a stane from the sling ower the craigs of Warroch-head""
- 3 To collect into clods, or into a thick mass; to coagulate; to clot.
"Clodded in lumps of clay."
Example
More examples""I fear the rain," said the stone. "What would I say, me!" replied the clod of earth."
Etymology
From Middle English clod, a late by-form of clot, from Old English clot, from Proto-West Germanic *klott (“mass, ball, clump”). Compare clot and cloud; cognate to kloot (“clod”). Alternatively, Middle English clod may derive from Old English *clod (found in Old English clodhamer (“a kind of thrush”) and Clodhangra (a placename)), from Proto-West Germanic *kloddō (“lump, clod”), from *gel- (“to ball up, become lumpy”), related to West Frisian klodde (“clod, lump”), Dutch klodde (“lump, blob”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.