different between plight vs clutch

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: pl?t, IPA^(key): /pla?t/
• Rhymes: -a?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English plit (“fold, wrinkle, bad situation”), conflation of Middle English pliht, plight (“risky promise, peril”) (from Old English pliht "danger, risk") and Anglo-Norman plit, plyte (“fold, condition”), from Old French pleit (“condition, manner of folding”) (from Vulgar Latin *plictum, from Latin plicitum (“fold”)).

Noun

plight (plural plights)

1. A dire or unfortunate situation. [from 14th c.]
   • 2005, Lesley Brown, translating Plato, Sophist, 243c:

     Though we say we are quite clear about it and understand when someone uses the expression, unlike that other expression, maybe we're in the same plight with regard to them both.
2. (now rare) A (neutral) condition or state. [from 14th c.]
3. (obsolete) Good health. [14th–19th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.7:

     All wayes shee sought him to restore to plight, / With herbs, with charms, with counsel, and with teares […].

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English plight (“risk, danger”), from Old English pliht (“peril, risk, danger, damage, plight”), from Proto-West Germanic *plihti (“care, responsibility, duty”). A suffixed form of the root represented by Old English pleoh (“risk, danger, hurt, peril"; also "responsibility”) and pl?on (“to endanger, risk”). Akin to Old English plihtan (“to endanger, compromise”). Cognate with Scots plicht (“responsibility, plight”), Dutch plicht, Low German plicht (“duty”), German Pflicht (“duty”), Danish pligt (“duty”), Yiddish ??????? (flikht). More at pledge.

Noun

plight (plural plights)

1. (now chiefly dialectal) Responsibility for ensuing consequences; risk; danger; peril.
2. (now chiefly dialectal) An instance of danger or peril; a dangerous moment or situation.
3. (now chiefly dialectal) Blame; culpability; fault; wrong-doing; sin; crime.
4. (now chiefly dialectal) One's office; duty; charge.
5. (archaic) That which is exposed to risk; that which is plighted or pledged; security; a gage; a pledge.

Derived terms

• plightful
• plightly

Translations

Verb

plight (third-person singular simple present plights, present participle plighting, simple past and past participle plighted)

1. (transitive, now rare) To expose to risk; to pledge.
2. (transitive) Specifically, to pledge (one's troth etc.) as part of a marriage ceremony.
3. (reflexive) To promise (oneself) to someone, or to do something.
   • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p. 226:

     I ask what I have done to deserve it, one daughter hobnobbing with radicals and the other planning to plight herself to a criminal.

Derived terms

• plighter

Etymology 3

From Middle English plyghten, ply?ten, pley?ten, pleiten, pliten, from the noun (see below).

Verb

plight (third-person singular simple present plights, present participle plighting, simple past and past participle plighted)

1. (obsolete) To weave; to braid; to fold; to plait.

Etymology 4

From Middle English pli?t, plight, plyt, pleit, from Anglo-Norman pleit (“pleat, fold”). More at plait.

Noun

plight (plural plights)

2. (obsolete) A network; a plait; a fold; rarely a garment.

Further reading

• Plight in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kl?t??/
• Rhymes: -?t?

Etymology 1

From Middle English clucchen, clicchen, cluchen, clechen, cleken, from Old English cly??an (“to clutch, clench”), from Proto-Germanic *klukjan?, from Proto-Germanic *klu- (“to ball up, conglomerate, amass”), from Proto-Indo-European *glew- (“to ball up; lump, mass”).Cognate with Swedish klyka (“clamp, fork, branch”). The noun is from Middle English cleche, cloche, cloke ("claw, talon, hand"; compare Scots cleuk, cluke, cluik (“claw, talon”)), of uncertain origin, with the form probably assimilated to the verb.

Alternative etymology derives Old English cly??an from Proto-Germanic *kl?k- (“claw, hand”), from Proto-Indo-European *gl?k-, *?l??- (“claw, hand; to clutch, snatch”). If so, then cognate with Irish glac (“hand”).

Alternative forms

• cletch, clitch, cleach (dialectal)
• cleak, cleek, cleik, click (dialectal)
• clouch (obsolete)

Verb

clutch (third-person singular simple present clutches, present participle clutching, simple past and past participle clutched)

1. To seize, as though with claws. [from 14th c.]
   • a. 1700, Jeremy Collier, A Thought

     A man may set the poles together in his head, and clutch the whole globe at one intellectual grasp.
2. To grip or grasp tightly. [from 17th c.]

Synonyms

• (grip or grasp tightly): clasp, grasp, grip; See also Thesaurus:grasp

Translations

Noun

clutch (plural clutches)

1. The claw of a predatory animal or bird. [from 13th c.]
2. (by extension) A grip, especially one seen as rapacious or evil. [from 16th c.]

   • the clutch of poverty

   • 1676, Edward Stillingfleet, A defence of the discourse concerning the idolatry practised in the Church of Rome […]

     I must have […] little care of myself, if I ever more come near the clutches of such a giant.

   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 57

     You scold yourself; you know it is only your nerves—and yet, and yet... In a little while, it is impossible to resist the terror that seizes you, and you are helpless in the clutch of an unseen horror.

3. A device to interrupt power transmission, commonly used to separate the engine and gearbox in a car. [from 19th c.]
4. The pedal in a car that disengages power and torque transmission from the engine (through the drivetrain) to the drive wheels.
5. Any device for gripping an object, as at the end of a chain or tackle.
6. A small handbag or purse with no straps or handle.
   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4

     The clutch which I had made to save myself in falling had torn away from this chin-band and let the lower jaw drop on the breast, but little else was disturbed, and there was Colonel John Mohune resting as he had been laid out a century ago.

Synonyms

• (small handbag): clutch bag

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

Variant form of cletch, from Middle English cleken (“to hatch”), perhaps from Old Norse klekja (“to hatch”).

Noun

clutch (plural clutches) (collective)

1. A brood of chickens or a sitting of eggs. [from 18th c.]
2. A group or bunch (of people or things). [from 20th c.]
   • 2012, The Economist, 22nd Sep., Innovation in Government: Britain's Local Labs

     No longer would Britons routinely blame the national government when things went wrong. Instead they would demand action from a new clutch of elected mayors, police commissioners and the like.

Derived terms

• clutch initiation
• subclutch

Translations

Verb

clutch (third-person singular simple present clutches, present participle clutching, simple past and past participle clutched)

1. (transitive) To hatch.

Etymology 3

Unknown; possibly analagous to clinch, pinch, which have similar senses.

Noun

clutch (plural clutches)

1. (US) An important or critical situation.

Translations

Adjective

clutch (comparative more clutch, superlative most clutch)

1. (US, Canada) Performing or tending to perform well in difficult, high-pressure situations.

Derived terms

• clutch artist
• clutch hitter

References

• clutch at OneLook Dictionary Search
• clutch in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• cultch

Norwegian Bokmål

Alternative forms

• kløtsj

Etymology

From English clutch

Noun

clutch m (definite singular clutchen, indefinite plural clutcher, definite plural clutchene)

1. a clutch (device between engine and gearbox)
2. clutch pedal

   trå in clutchen - step on the clutch

Synonyms

• kobling
• kopling

References

• “clutch” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Alternative forms

• kløtsj

Etymology

From English clutch

Noun

clutch m (definite singular clutchen, indefinite plural clutchar, definite plural clutchane)

1. a clutch (device between engine and gearbox)
2. (short form of) clutch pedal (as in English)

Synonyms

• kopling

References

• “clutch” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?klot??/, [?klot??]

Noun

clutch m (plural clutches)

1. Alternative form of cloche