clinching
clinching is the present participle and gerund of clinch.
Noun
clinching (countable and uncountable, plural clinchings)
- A clinch; a passionate embrace.
- Though there are no kissings and clinchings, […]1937, Motion Picture Herald, volume 127, numbers 1-6, page 42
- A making certain or finalizing.
- Only six weeks into the season, the top-ranked Bulldogs were undefeated at 60, but more important to Louisiana Tech was one of the earliest clinchings of a conference title in the annals of college football.2015, George Becnel, The Southland Conference: Small College Football, Big Dreams
- The distortion of computer tape by wrinkling.
- This “clinching” can distort the tape by causing a series of creases or folds in the surface and may produce read errors.1985, Alvin C. Larson, Computer Operator (AFSC 51150), page 87
- Computer magnetic tape is designed primarily for its storage capacity, speed, and capacity to be repeatedly erased and written over. […] Bad binder can cause holes in the oxide, loose particles, or clinching of tape.1987, Conservation Administration News, numbers 28-35, page 29
Meaning of clinch
Verb
clinch (third-person singular simple present clinches, present participle clinching, simple past and past participle clinched)
- To bend and hammer the point of (a nail) so it cannot be removed.
- To clasp; to interlock.
- “Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah—‘And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.’”1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 9, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
- To fasten securely or permanently.
- To make certain; to finalize.
- I already planned to buy the car, but the color was what really clinched it for me.
- To hold firmly; to clench
- To set closely together; to close tightly.
- to clinch the teeth or the fist
Adjective
clinching (comparative more clinching, superlative most clinching)
- That settles something (such as an argument) definitely and conclusively.
- ‘Yes,’ said Dick, with such a clinching period at the end that it seemed he was never going to add another word.1872, [Thomas Hardy], “VIII. Dick Meets His Father”, in Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School, volume II, London: Tinsley Brothers, →OCLC, part II, page 16
- There were no dreams,
No phantoms in her future any more:
One clinching revelation of what was
One by-flash of irrevocable chance,
Had acridly but honestly foretold
The mystical fulfilment of a life
That might have once … But that was all gone by1921, Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Imogen”, in Collected Poems, lines 113–119
Forms of clinching
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more clinching |
| superlative | most clinching |
| Noun | |
| plural | clinchings |
Words formed from clinching
Questions about clinching
- What does clinching mean?
- Clinching means that settles something (such as an argument) definitely and conclusively.
- What is clinching the present participle and gerund of?
- Clinching is the present participle and gerund of clinch.
- What part of speech is clinching?
- Clinching can be an adjective or a noun.
Words near clinching in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: clinching (page history and authors); clinch (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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Cite this entry: “clinching.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clinching. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.