different between clunker vs clinker

English

Etymology

From clunk +? -er.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?kl??k?/
• Rhymes: -??k?(?)

Noun

clunker (plural clunkers)

1. (informal) A decrepit motor car.
   • 2004, Teralee E. M. Bird, What the Herald Angel Sang (Seraphim Trilogy Book One), ?ISBN:

     The only rig nobody'd recognize is that clunker that Vic drove here in, and he won't take it.

2. (informal) Anything which is in poor condition or of poor quality.
   • 1974, Erma Bombeck, "Who's Been Playing At Erma's Typewriter?," Ocala Star-Banner, 3 Oct., p. 12A (retrieved 2 Sep. 2009):

     I bought an old clunker of a typewriter.

   • 2006, Elizabeth Crane, "Books: Best book by a Chicago author" (Review of Trouble by Patrick Somerville), Time Out Chicago, 28 Dec. (retrieved 2 Sep. 2009):

     All of the stories have a subtle undercurrent of brutality, and the writing is consistently sharp, direct and darkly funny, and there’s not a clunker in the bunch.

Translations

Anagrams

• crunkle

English

Alternative forms

• (brick): klinker

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kl??k?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /kl??k?/
• Rhymes: -??k?(r)
• Hyphenation: clink?er

Etymology 1

From Dutch klinkaerd, later klinker, from klinken (“to ring, resound”).

Noun

clinker (countable and uncountable, plural clinkers)

1. A very hard brick used for paving customarily made in the Netherlands. [from 17th c.]
   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943, Chapter XXXII, p. 581, [1]

     She left the road at the little shed where he whom she still regarded as her father used to keep his tricycle, and walked up the clinker path towards the house.

2. A mass of bricks fused together by intense heat. [from 17th c.]
3. Slag or ash produced by intense heat in a furnace, kiln or boiler that forms a hard residue upon cooling. [from 18th c.]
   • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of All Sorts, "Dew and Alarm Clocks," [2]

     Cold and grim sat that malevolent brute the furnace, greedy, bottomless—its grate bars clenched over clinkers which no shaker could dislodge.

4. An intermediate product in the manufacture of Portland cement, obtained by sintering limestone and alumino-silicate materials such as clay into nodules in a cement kiln.
5. Hardened volcanic lava. [from 19th c.]
   • 2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society 2011, p. 10:

     Nobody could pretend that a huge slope of clinker is aesthetically pleasing.

6. A scum of oxide of iron formed in forging. [from 19th c.]

Derived terms

• clinker block

Translations

Verb

clinker (third-person singular simple present clinkers, present participle clinkering, simple past and past participle clinkered)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To convert or be converted into clinker.
   • 1923, United States Geological Survey, Bulletin 748 (page 125)

     This burning has baked and clinkered the adjacent strata, producing a very resistant formation, which rises with conspicuous abruptness from the flat terrace underlain by the soft Lebo shale member.

   • 1981, David W. Schultz, Municipal solid waste, resource recovery: Proceedings of the seventh annual research symposium at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 16-18

     The use of coal with a low ash fusion temperature (1204°C, or 2200°F) caused frequent clinkering on the grate during initial tests. The clinkering stopped when the coal was replaced with one having a higher fusion temperature […]

Etymology 2

From clink +? -er.

Noun

clinker (plural clinkers)

1. Someone or something that clinks.
2. (in the plural) Fetters.

Translations

Etymology 3

From clincher

Noun

clinker (uncountable)

1. (nautical, chiefly attributive) A style of boatbuilding using overlapping planks.

   clinker planking; a clinker dinghy

Synonyms

• lapstrake

Derived terms

• clinker-built
• clinkerwise

Translations

Anagrams

• crinkle

French

Noun

clinker m (plural clinkers)

1. clinker