clouts

Noun

clout (countable and uncountable, plural clouts)

1. (informal) Influence or effectiveness, especially political.
   • Having relinquished his clout in City Council to run for a place on the county board, and having lost stature by reason of his failure to win the presidency, Duffy was in no position to seek the party chairmanship for himself1975, Len O'Connor, Clout--Mayor Daley and His City, page 74
2. A blow with the hand.
   • ‘Such a clout on the ear as you gave me… But I soon taught you.’1910, Katherine Mansfield, Frau Brenchenmacher Attends A Wedding
3. (informal) A home run.
   • '... allowed Boston to score all of its runs on homers, including a pair of clouts by Jacoby Ellsbury ...'2011 August 17, Michael Vega, “Triple double”, in The Boston Globe, page C1
4. The center of the butt at which archers shoot; probably once a piece of white cloth or a nail head.
   • For kings are clouts that euery man ſhoots at,
     Our Crowne the pin that thouſands ſeeke to cleaue.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
5. (dated, regional) A swaddling cloth, nappy, or loincloth.
   • When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg’s ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two.1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 12
6. (archaic) A cloth; a piece of cloth or leather; a patch; a rag.
   • His garment nought but many ragged clouts, / With thornes together pind and patched was, / The which his naked sides he wrapt abouts;1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 129

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