different between puissance vs clout

English

Alternative forms

• Puissance (show jumping)

Etymology

From Middle English puissaunce, from Anglo-Norman puissance, pusaunce, and other forms, from Old French puissant (“powerful”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?pju??.s(?)ns/, /?pw?-/
• Hyphenation: puis?sance

Noun

puissance (countable and uncountable, plural puissances)

1. Power, might or potency.
   • 2006, Clive James, North Face of Soho: Unreliable Memoirs. Vol. IV, London: Picador, ISBN 978-0-330-48128-1; republished London: Picador, 2007, ISBN 978-0-330-48127-4, page 66:

     Any impression of mental puissance might have been increased by the fact that I was usually to be seen working hard with notebook and biro, shaping up a new book review or a linking script […].

2. (equestrianism) Often Puissance: the high-jump component of the sport of show jumping.

Translations

French

Etymology

From Middle French puissance, derived from Old French puissant.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?i.s??s/
• Rhymes: -??s

Noun

puissance f (plural puissances)

1. power (physical or figuratively)
2. dominion (state within the British Empire)

Derived terms

• en puissance
• puissance mondiale

Related terms

• pouvoir

Preposition

puissance

1. (mathematics) to the power of

   Deux puissance quatre égale seize.

Further reading

• “puissance” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French puissance.

Noun

puissance f (plural puissances)

1. power

Descendants

• French: puissance

Old French

Alternative forms

Etymology

From puissant, pussant.

Noun

puissance f (oblique plural puissances, nominative singular puissance, nominative plural puissances)

1. power; ability; authority
2. might; strength

Descendants

• English: puissance (borrowed through Anglo-Norman)
• Middle French: puissance
  • French: puissance

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