Word.ws English Dictionary

clench

/klɛnt͡ʃ/

clench verb: to grip or hold fast. Also the alternative form of clinch.

clench: to grip or hold fast
Image: Ralpharama, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

clench (third-person singular simple present clenches, present participle clenching, simple past and past participle clenched)

  1. (ambitransitive) To grip or hold fast.
    • I clenched the rope in my teeth.
    • Clinch the pointed spear.1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
  2. (ambitransitive) 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, […]1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Elaine”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 179

Noun

clench (plural clenches)

  1. (ambitransitive) A tight grip.
  2. (ambitransitive) A seal that is applied to formed thin-wall bushings.
  3. (ambitransitive) 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 […]1989, Ted Schultz, The Fringes of Reason, page 210
    • Every SubGenius clench is required to have a member who does not believe […]2003, Peter Knight, Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia, page 170
  4. (ambitransitive, obsolete) A pun.
    • Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes1728, [Alexander Pope], “Book the First”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. […], Dublin; London: […] A. Dodd, →OCLC, page 1
    Synonyms:
    clinch

Also used as

clench is also the alternative form of clinch.

clench is also the dated form of clinch.

clench meaning in Marathi

clench in Marathi

to squeeze
आवळणे āvaḷṇe

Examples of clench in a sentence

  • When approached by a stranger, Jared clenched his fists in an instinctive manner.
  • Chest tight, her one hand clenched into a rock hard fist, Gliss stared at the remains.
  • As the next five-foot peeler rolled by, Lee grasped his board and clenched his teeth.

All 36 example sentences with clench

Synonyms of clench

Antonyms

Forms of clench

Verb
third-person singular presentclenches
present participleclenching
past participleclenched
pastclenched
Noun
pluralclenches

Past tense of clench: clenched

Origin of clench

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.

Words formed from clench

Words that rhyme with clench

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about clench

What does clench mean?
Clench means to grip or hold fast.
What is clench in Marathi?
Clench in Marathi is आवळणे (āvaḷṇe). See Clench meaning in Marathi.
What part of speech is clench?
Clench can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce clench?
Clench is pronounced /klɛnt͡ʃ/.
What is the past tense of clench?
The past tense of clench is clenched.

Words near clench in the dictionary

  1. Clemsonings
  2. Clemsons
  3. Clemton Park
  4. clen
  5. clenbuterol
  6. clench
  7. clench one's fists
  8. clench-built
  9. clenchable
  10. clenched
  11. clenched fist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clench (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-clench.wav.

Cite this entry: “clench.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clench. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.