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clench

verb
/klɛnt͡ʃ/

Etymology

From Middle English clenchen, from Old English clenċan (“to clinch; hold fast”), a variant of Old English clenġan (“to adhere; remain”), from Proto-Germanic *klangijaną, causative of *klinganą (“to stick; adhere”). Related to cling.

  1. inherited from *klangijaną✻
  2. inherited from clenġan — “to adhere; remain”
  3. inherited from clenċan — “to clinch; hold fast”
  4. inherited from clenchen

Definitions

  1. To grip or hold fast.

    • I clenched the rope in my teeth.
    • Clinch the pointed spear.

  2. To close tightly.

    • He clenched his fist in anger.
    • [She] flung herself / Down on the great King's couch, and writhed upon it, / And clench'd her fingers till they bit the palm, / And shriek'd out 'traitor' to the unhearing wall, […]

  3. Alternative form of clinch (“bend and hammer a nail”).

  4. ›+ 6 more definitions

    1. Dated form of clinch (“make certain, finalize”).

      • to clench an argument

    2. A tight grip.

    3. Alternative form of clinch (“the act of bending and hammering the point of a nail so it…

      Alternative form of clinch (“the act of bending and hammering the point of a nail so it cannot be removed”).

    4. A seal that is applied to formed thin-wall bushings.

    5. A local chapter of the Church of the SubGenius parody religion.

      • And perhaps most innovative of all, Drummond and Stang pushed for a policy of clench autonomy […]
      • Every SubGenius clench is required to have a member who does not believe […]
      • Originality is encouraged, and some clenches have devised their own distinctive organizational names […]

    6. A pun.

      • Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes

The neighborhood

Derived

buttock-clenching, clenchable, clench-built, clencher, clench one's fists, clenchpoop, clencht, clinch, reclench

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for clench. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA