Word.ws English Dictionary

clod

UK/klɒd//klɑd/

clod noun: a lump of something, especially earth or clay.

Noun

clod (plural clods)

  1. A lump of something, especially earth or clay.
    • clods of iron and brass1667, 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...
    • clods of blood1600, Edward Fairfax (translator), originally published in 1581 by Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered
  2. The ground; the earth; a spot of earth or turf.
    • the clod where once their sultan's horse hath trod1723, Jonathan Swift, Pethox the Great
  3. A stupid person, a dolt, a clodpate, a clodhopper.
    • The vulgar, a scarce animated clod1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, →OCLC, Act I, page 3
    • '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?'1906, Robert Barr, The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont
  4. Part of a shoulder of beef, or of the neck piece near the shoulder.

Verb

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

  1. (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."1906, Mark Twain, Eve's Diary
    • 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 dirt1959, Louis L'Amour, The First Fast Draw
  2. (Scotland, transitive) 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"1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown...
  3. To collect into clods, or into a thick mass; to coagulate; to clot.
    • Clodded in lumps of clay.1610, Giles Fletcher, Christ's Victorie and Triumph

clod meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

clod in Tamil

மண்ணாங்கட்டி, மண், பொழி, கற்றை, முட்டாள்

clod in Urdu

اناڑی, بےادب, ڈلا, ڈلی, گاؤدی, ہیچ

clod in Bengali

lump of something, especially of earth or clay
ঢিল ḍhil

clod in Malayalam

മൺകട്ട, ബുദ്ധിഹീനൻ, വിഡ്ഢി, മൂഢൻ
More languagesFewer languages
clod in Kannada
ಹೆಟೆ, ಹೆಂಟೆ
clod in Gujarati
ઢેપું ḍhepũ
clod in Assamese
টুকুৰা tukura
clod in Persian
کلوخ kolux

Examples of clod in a sentence

  • The earth that casteth up from the plough a great clod, is not so good as that which casteth up a smaller clod.1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In...
  • As for yon clod of clay, we will bury it later, lest it should pollute so goodly a pool.1903, Warwick Deeping, Uther and Igraine:
  • One of the clods took it back of the ear, and it used language.1906, Mark Twain, Eve's Diary:
  • "What a bunch of hooey," I said under my breath, tossing a dirt clod over my shoulder against the locked-up garden shed.2010, Clare Vanderpool, Moon Over Manifest:

All 17 example sentences with clod

Forms of clod

Noun
pluralclods
Verb
third-person singular presentclods
present participleclodding
past participleclodded
pastclodded

Origin of clod

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”).

Words formed from clod

Phrases with clod

Words that rhyme with clod

26 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about clod

What does clod mean?
Clod means a lump of something, especially earth or clay.
What is clod in Tamil?
Clod in Tamil is மண்ணாங்கட்டி, மண், பொழி. See Clod meaning in Tamil.
How do you use clod in a sentence?
The earth that casteth up from the plough a great clod, is not so good as that which casteth up a smaller clod.
What part of speech is clod?
Clod can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce clod?
Clod is pronounced /klɒd/ (UK).
What is the plural of clod?
The plural of clod is clods.

Words near clod in the dictionary

  1. clockworks
  2. clockworky
  3. clocky
  4. clocortolone
  5. clocoumarol
  6. clod
  7. clod hopper
  8. clod-hopper
  9. clod-hopping
  10. clodacaine
  11. clodanolene

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clod (page history and authors); clod (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); clod (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); clod (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); clod (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ઢેપું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); টুকুৰা (Assamese) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-clod.ogg.

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