Word.ws English Dictionary

clerk-ales

clerk-ales is the plural of clerk-ale.

Meaning of clerk-ale

Noun

clerk-ale (plural clerk-ales)

  1. (UK, obsolete) A feast for the benefit of the parish clerk.
    • That ALE is festival, appears from its sense in composition; as, amongst others, in the words Lecet-ale, Lamb-ale, Whitson-ale, Clerk-ale, and Church-ale1774-1781, Thomas Warton, History of English Poetry

Questions about clerk-ales

What is clerk-ales the plural of?
Clerk-ales is the plural of clerk-ale.

Words near clerk-ales in the dictionary

  1. clerk of the pells
  2. clerk of the pipe
  3. clerk of the works
  4. clerk of works
  5. clerk-ale
  6. clerk-ales
  7. clerkage
  8. clerkdom
  9. clerkdoms
  10. clerke
  11. clerked

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clerk-ales (page history and authors); clerk-ale (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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