different between clout vs hammer

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kla?t/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /kl??t/
• Rhymes: -a?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English clout, from Old English cl?t, from Proto-Germanic *kl?taz, from Proto-Indo-European *gelewdos, from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to ball up, amass”). Cognate with Old Norse klútr (“kerchief”), Swedish klut, Danish klud, Middle High German kl?z (“lump”), whence German Kloß, and dialect Russian ????? (gluda). See also cleat. The sense “influence, especially political” originated in the dialect of Chicago, but has become widespread.

Noun

clout (countable and uncountable, plural clouts)

1. Influence or effectiveness, especially political.
2. (regional, informal) A blow with the hand.
   • 1910, Katherine Mansfield, Frau Brenchenmacher Attends A Wedding

     ‘Such a clout on the ear as you gave me… But I soon taught you.’

3. (baseball, informal) A home run.
   • 2011, Michael Vega, "Triple double", in The Boston Globe, August 17, 2011, p. C1.

     '... allowed Boston to score all of its runs on homers, including a pair of clouts by Jacoby Ellsbury ...'

4. (archery) The center of the butt at which archers shoot; probably once a piece of white cloth or a nail head.
   • c. 1594, William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV, Scene 1,^[4]

     A’ must shoot nearer or he’ll ne’er hit the clout.

5. (regional, dated) A swaddling cloth.
6. (archaic) A cloth; a piece of cloth or leather; a patch; a rag.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, London: William Ponsonbie, Book 1, Canto 9, p. 129,^[5]

     His garment nought but many ragged clouts, / With thornes together pind and patched was, / The which his naked sides he wrapt abouts;

   • c. 1600 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2,^[6]

     […] a clout upon that head

     Where late the diadem stood […]

   • 1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, p. 74,^[7]

     We condol’d with each other, and observ’d how wretchedly we look’d, all naked, except a small Clout about our Middles […]
7. (archaic) An iron plate on an axletree or other wood to keep it from wearing; a washer.
8. (obsolete) A piece; a fragment.
   • c. 1390s, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, “The Merchant’s Tale,” lines 707-709, in The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, London: Bell & Daldy, 1866, Volume 2, p. 339,^[8]

     And whan sche of this bille hath taken heede, / Sche rente it al to cloutes atte laste / And into the privy softely it caste.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

clout (third-person singular simple present clouts, present participle clouting, simple past and past participle clouted)

1. To hit, especially with the fist.
2. To cover with cloth, leather, or other material; to bandage, patch, or mend with a clout.
   • 15 March, 1549, Hugh Latimer, The Second Sermon preached before the King's Majesty at Westminster

     Paul, yea, and Peter, too, had more skill in […] clouting an old tent than to teach lawyers.

3. To stud with nails, as a timber, or a boot sole.
4. To guard with an iron plate, as an axletree.
5. To join or patch clumsily.

Translations

Etymology 2

Verb

clout (third-person singular simple present clouts, present participle clouting, simple past and past participle clouted)

1. Dated form of clot.
   • 1948, The Essex Review

     He tells us how to butter eggs, boil eels, clout cream, stew capons, how to make a fine cake, an almond pudding and a raspberry conserve, […]

References

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English cl?t, from Proto-West Germanic *kl?t, from Proto-Germanic *kl?taz. Compare cloud.

Alternative forms

• clowt, cloute, clowte, clowtt

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klu?t/

Noun

clout (plural cloutes)

1. A (smaller) piece of fabric; a shred:
   1. A patch (fabric for mending).
   2. A bandage or dressing (for wounds)
   3. rag, tatter (piece of clothing)
2. A (larger) piece of fabric; a cloth:
   1. Threadbare or inferior clothing.
   2. Cloth for wrapping babies; swaddling clothes.
   3. A burial shroud.
3. A washer; a round metal panel.
4. A fragment or shred.
5. A strike, blow or hit.

Related terms

• clouten
• clouting
• clowter

Descendants

• English: clout
• Scots: clout, cloot

References

• “cl?ut, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
• “cl?ut, n.(3).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Etymology 2

Verb

clout

1. Alternative form of clouten

English

Etymology

From Middle English hamer, from Old English hamor, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz (“tool with a stone head”) (compare West Frisian hammer, Low German Hamer, Dutch hamer, German Hammer, Danish hammer, Swedish hammare), from Proto-Indo-European *h?e?moros (compare Sanskrit ????? (a?mará, “stony”)), itself a derivation from *h?é?m? (“stone”).

For *h?é?m? (“stone”), compare Lithuanian akmuõ, Latvian akmens, Russian ?????? (kamen?), Serbo-Croatian kam?n, Albanian kmesë (“sickle”), Ancient Greek ????? (ákm?n, “meteor rock, anvil”), Avestan ????????????????????? (namsa), Sanskrit ?????? (á?man)) (root *h?e?- (“sharp”)).

(declare a defaulter on the stock exchange): Originally signalled by knocking with a wooden mallet.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?hæ.m?(?)/
• Rhymes: -æm?(r)
• (US) IPA^(key): /?hæ.m?/

Noun

hammer (plural hammers)

1. A tool with a heavy head and a handle used for pounding.

2. The act of using a hammer to hit something.

3. A moving part of a firearm that strikes the firing pin to discharge a gun.
4. (anatomy) The malleus, a small bone of the middle ear.
5. (music) In a piano or dulcimer, a piece of wood covered in felt that strikes the string.

6. (sports) A device made of a heavy steel ball attached to a length of wire, and used for throwing.
7. (curling) The last stone in an end.
8. (frisbee) A frisbee throwing style in which the disc is held upside-down with a forehand grip and thrown above the head.
9. Part of a clock that strikes upon a bell to indicate the hour.
10. One who, or that which, smites or shatters.

    St. Augustine was the hammer of heresies.

    • 1849, John Henry Newman, Discourses to Mixed Congregations

      He met the stern legionaries [of Rome] who had been the massive iron hammers of the whole earth.

11. (journalism) Short for hammer headline.
    • 1981, Harry W. Stonecipher, ?Edward C. Nicholls, ?Douglas A. Anderson, Electronic Age News Editing (page 104)

      Hammers are, in essence, reverse kickers. Instead of being set in smaller type like kickers, hammers are set in larger type than headlines.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• mallet

Verb

hammer (third-person singular simple present hammers, present participle hammering, simple past and past participle hammered)

1. To strike repeatedly with a hammer, some other implement, the fist, etc.
2. To form or forge with a hammer; to shape by beating.

   • hammered money

3. (figuratively) To emphasize a point repeatedly.
4. (sports) To hit particularly hard.
5. (cycling, intransitive, slang) To ride very fast.
   • 2011, Tim Moore, French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France (page 58)

     Fifteen minutes later, leaving a vapour trail of kitchen smells, I hammered into Obterre.
6. (intransitive) To strike internally, as if hit by a hammer.

   I could hear the engine’s valves hammering once the timing rod was thrown.

7. (transitive, slang, figuratively, sports) To defeat (a person, a team) resoundingly

   We hammered them 5-0!

8. (transitive, slang, computing) To make high demands on (a system or service).
   • 1995, Optimizing Windows NT (volume 4, page 226)

     So we'll be hammering the server in an unrealistic manner, but we'll see how the additional clients affect overall performance. We'll add two, three, four, and then five clients, […]

9. (transitive, finance) To declare (a person) a defaulter on the stock exchange.
10. (transitive, finance) To beat down the price of (a stock), or depress (a market).
11. (transitive, colloquial) To have hard sex with

    Synonym: pound

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• hammer out

Danish

Etymology

From Old Norse hamarr, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz, from Proto-Indo-European *h?e?moros, from *h?é?m? (“stone”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ham?r/, [?h?m?]

Noun

hammer c (singular definite hammeren, plural indefinite hammere or hamre)

1. hammer

Inflection

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ham?/
• Homophone: Hammer

Verb

hammer

1. (colloquial, regional) Contraction of haben wir.

Usage notes

This contraction is common throughout central Germany, southern Germany, and Austria. It is only occasionally heard in northern Germany.

See also

• simmer

Middle English

Noun

hammer

1. Alternative form of hamer

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology 1

From Old Norse hamarr, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz, from Proto-Indo-European *h?e?moros, from *h?é?m? (“stone”).

Alternative forms

• hammar

Noun

hammer m (definite singular hammeren, indefinite plural hammere or hamrer, definite plural hammerne or hamrene)

1. a hammer (tool)

Related terms

• hamre (verb)

Etymology 2

Noun

hammer m

1. indefinite plural of ham

References

• “hammer” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian hamar, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz, from Proto-Indo-European *h?e?moros, from *h?é?m? (“stone”).

Noun

hammer c (plural hammers, diminutive hammerke)

1. hammer

Further reading

• “hammer”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011