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''clod'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''clod'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904120411-00-⌔

clod - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

clod (plural clods)

  • A lump of something, especially earth or clay.
    • ✤ * clods of iron and brass*1
    • ✤ * clods of blood*2
    • ✤ The earth that casteth up from the plough a great clod, is not so good as that which casteth up a smaller clod.3
    • ✤ As for yon clod of clay, we will bury it later, lest it should pollute so goodly a pool.4
    • ✤ One of the clods took it back of the ear, and it used language. It gave me a thrill, for it was the first time I had ever heard speech, except my own.5
    • ✤ “What a bunch of hooey,” I said under my breath, tossing a dirt clod over my shoulder against the locked-up garden shed.6
  • The ground; the earth; a spot of earth or turf.
    • ✤ the clod where once their sultan’s horse hath trod7
  • A stupid person, a dolt, a clodpate, a clodhopper.
    • ✤ *The vulgar, a scarce animated clod *8
    • ✤ ‘What was its number?’
      ‘I don’t know, sir.'
      'You clod! Why didn’t you call one of our men, whoever was nearest, and leave him to shadow the American while you followed the cab?’      9
    • ✤ So here’s a valentine for you, you insensitive clod!!10
    • ✤ Gerald Broflovski: You see Kyle, we humans work as a society, and in order for a society to thrive, we need gods and clods.11
    • ✤ Peridot: Don’t touch that! You clods don’t know what you’re doing!12
  • Part of a shoulder of beef, or of the neck piece near the shoulder.
    • ✤ Holonym: chuck
    • ✤ Comeronym: chuck roll

Verb

clod (third-person singular simple present clods, present participle clodding, simple past and past participle clodded)

  • (transitive) To pelt with clods.
    • ✤ “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.”13
    • ✤ when I came out and started to hoist it to the mule’s back they rushed at me and jerked my suspenders down and then they clodded me with chunks of dirt14
  • (transitive, Scotland) To throw violently; to hurl.
    • ✤ “So, sir, she grippit him, and clodded him like a stane from the sling ower the craigs of Warroch-head”15
  • To collect into clods, or into a thick mass; to coagulate; to clot.
    • ✤ * Clodded in lumps of clay.*16

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”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /klɒd/
  • (General American) IPA: /klɑd/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɒd

Printed 2026-09-04.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a] nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a] nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC: ↩

  2. 1600, Edward Fairfax (translator), originally published in 1581 by Torquato Tasso, w:Jerusalem Delivered ↩

  3. 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis[Bacon], “”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p] rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC: ↩

  4. 1903, Warwick Deeping, Uther and Igraine: ↩

  5. 1906, Mark Twain, Eve’s Diary: ↩

  6. 2010, Clare Vanderpool, Moon Over Manifest: ↩

  7. 1723, Jonathan Swift, Pethox the Great: ↩

  8. 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, →OCLC, Act I, page 3: ↩

  9. 1906, Robert Barr, The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont: ↩

  10. 1986 February 14, Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes: ↩

  11. 1998, Chickenpox (episode of South Park TV series) ↩

  12. 2015, “Jail Break” (episode of Steven Universe TV series) ↩

  13. 1906, Mark Twain, Eve’s Diary: ↩

  14. 1959, Louis L’Amour, The First Fast Draw: ↩

  15. 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC: ↩

  16. 1610, Giles Fletcher, Christ’s Victorie and Triumph: ↩

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