clod n.1
1. (also clod-head) a stupid person, esp. a dull-witted peasant.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Every Man Out of his Humour I i: This clod, a whoreson puck-fist! | |
| Volpone III i: O, your parasite Is a most precious thing, dropt from above, Not bred ’mongst clods and clodpoles, here on earth. | |
| Colasterion Works IV (1851) 362: Rather then spend words with this fleamy clodd of an Antagonist [...] I will not now contend whether it be a greater cause. | |
| Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 254: What! Is the fellow a mere Bumpkin, / A down-right Clod. | |
| Wits Paraphras’d 104: Clods fought with Clods, sprung up and slew / Each other. | |
| Collin’s Walk canto 2 55: Those clods of Resolution, That filthy nest of suburb Vermin Were thronging up t’assist the Carman. | |
| Sawney 9: The Bard remains a Clod. | |
| ‘Cymon & Iphigenia’ Tom-Tit Pt 13: The former Clod is thus inspir’d with Sense. | |
| ‘Tale’ Misc. 11: Tom Clod, a Yeoman of the West. | |
| Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 243: This fellow is no earth-born clod, / But bastard to some whoring God. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | April-Day Act II: Do I not see / That this clod’s pride, fear, and superstition, / All op’rate to our aid? | |
| Young Quaker 15: Enter chronicle’s servants, Twig and Clod. | |
| ‘Answer to Captain Morris’ in Hilaria 76: We in the country, whom cocknies call clods. | |
| Mysteries of the Castle Dramatis Personae: Cloddy (a country fellow). | |
| Britons Strike Home 7: The same dull clod I was before. | |
| Eng. Spy I 134: A mere clod, but a great man with the corporation. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Owl (NY) 14 Aug. n.p.: ‘Why, you must be quite a fool.’ ‘No, I ben’t quite,’ said Clod drily, ‘ but I be very near one’. | |
| ‘Miseries Of An Omnibus’ Dublin Comic Songster 336: Some hobnailed clod walks over them whose stumps not very light are. | |
 | Peregrine Pulteney I 16: There are so many different dialects, what with ‘snobs,’ and ‘clods,’ and ‘chaws,’ and ‘jigs’. | |
| Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs (1851) 35: He regarded them as only fit to be pursued by purse-proud clod-heads. | |
| Glasgow Wkly Times (Glasgow, MO) 27 Sept. 2/6: If the members are such clod-heads as to have to get some one to write for them [etc.]. | |
| Night Side of London 219: I do n’t believe naturally men or women are these dull clods. | |
| Lorna Doone (1923) 38: The Doones were of very high birth, as all we clods of Exmoor knew. | |
| Cruel London III 149: If I were a philosopher, or a clod, or something between your friend Thompson and a nigger, there might be hope. | |
| ‘’Arry on the Elections’ Punch 12 Dec. 277/2: He [i.e. a Radical] is mostly a white-feathered Muggins, and always a clod or a cad. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Dundee Courier 27 Jan. 7/1: But we don’t a-know wot way he has gone, clodhead don’t yer see? | |
| Newcastle Courant 14 Oct. 2/5: Clodhead: Here, Mrs Dingle, — that boy o’ yourn has been and stole the scarecrow out o’ my field. | |
| Amateur Cracksman (1992) 117: I should have thought any clod could see that I meant us to meet by chance! | |
| Mop Fair 59: A rustic clod of a railway porter. | |
| The First Stone 24: You stupid English law, / Pretended to send me here / Because of my infamies / With certain unkempt clods. | |
| Ulysses 477: Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod? | |
| Tropic of Cancer (1963) 273: There was nothing to distinguish them from the clods whom they would later wipe their boots on. | |
| letter 18 Oct. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 45: The ‘wrong’ attitude to Dryden is that he is a boring clod with no idea of poetry. | |
| Mad mag. Spring 12: [...] with heavy black eyeglasses, loutish looking clod becomes intelligent looking clod. | |
| Nil Carborundum (1963) Act II: Don’t be a clod. | |
| All Bull 151: It surprised me, the odd clod apart, how easy it is to achieve this [i.e. military drill]. | |
| Curse of the Vampire Socks 51: What’s that, you silly clod? |
2. a rude, awkward person.
| et al. CUSS 97: Clod. | |
| (con. 1969) Dispatches 31: I’m just a fucking oaf, I’m a fucking clod. | |
| (con. 1949) Boomers 140: Melvis is a clod. Melvis is ignorant. | |
| Last of the High Kings 153: Gerty [...] panicked and yanked the glass off the table into her lap. Oh, I’m just such a clod, really I am. |
In derivatives
1. stupid, dull-witted.
| Newes out of Islington in Halliwell (1849) 28: Wherefore fare you well, cloddish ploughman. | |
| Women’s Wit in Dramatic Works II 315: A man / Of cloddish nature, base and ignorant. | |
| Bath Chron. 27 Aug. 4/5: The prisoner is a cloddish-looking fellow. | |
| Freeman’s Jrnl (Dublin) 16 Apr. 2/6: There are some people who confound cloddish stupidity. | |
| Oldtown Folks 511: These fellows are well enough, but they are cloddish and lumpish. | |
| Manchester Courier 16 May 5/4: He has been represented as all that is stupid, dull, cloddish and animal. | |
| Belfast News Ltr 26 July 7/3: Many lads, far from the heather, hang around the stove in cloddish embarrassment, afraid of the sound of their own voices. | |
| Ruggles of Red Gap (1917) 288: Louts for waiters, cloddish louts! | |
| Lincs. Echo 22 July 4/4: As for our cloddish behaviour in restaurants, I can on only say that I have never observed it. | |
| Burnley Exp. 14 Feb. 2/2: Alan Thompson as the cloddish but dry-witted son. | |
| (con. 1940s) Andy 47: The aeroplane is a supreme machine. A kite is entirely yours, what personality you have, it will express. If you’re feeling grumpy and cloddish it will bounce when you land it and skid. | |
| Embarrassment of Riches 258: They [i.e the Dutch] were the cheesemongers, the herring picklers, the cloddish Hogan Mogans. | |
| Sontag & Kael 167: Cloddish writing goes hand in hand with cloddish thinking — if, indeed, it isn't the same thing. |
2. clumsy, awkward.
| Touch and Go 11: I had the cloddish, clumsy feeling as I went back downstairs. | |
| Stalker (2001) 170: ‘He put the move on you?’ Marge asked. ‘Not in a cloddish way,’ Cindy said. |
stupidity, dullness.
| London Daily News 13 Feb. 4/2: The cloddishness of the peasant is [...] compensated by the intelligence of the class which directs and employs him. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
very stupid.
| Hereford Times 23 Feb. 4/5: Do you [...] suppose that I am so clod-brained as to believe that? | |
| Lloyd’s Penny Wkly Misc. I 719/1: The sot - the ass - the clod-brained Andrew Britton. | |
| Earl of Gowrie 137: She has no great right to wisdom, sire, Being the child of such a clod brained carle / As him who calls her daughter. | |
| Dly Phoenix (Columbia, SC) 10 Feb. 1/1: Look at the increase of [...] ignorant, clod-headed, pox-faced jackass Jutsices. | |
| Chelmsford Chron. 1 June 5/5: They did not want a lot of clod-brained people. | |
| Windsor Mag. 86 24/2: Bugs to yer, yer clod-brained prunes! | |
| Best of Myles (1968) 328: The illiterate stupid ... clodbrained ... half-witted ... platter-faced ... cuckoo. | |
| Cry & Covenant 248: You clod-brained— you irresponsible— are you gone mad? Are you killers? | |
| Homo Thugs 78: Aurelio gave us advice about girls, larcenous border guards, clod- brained farmers, bumbling cops and the whores who supposedly loved him. |
(US) a rustic, a farmer.
| Spirit of Democracy (Woodsfield, OH) 30 Nov. 1/6: Come back here you infernal clod-buster, and pay for that melon. | |
| Omaha Dly Bee (NE) 11 Feb. 11/3: It was there I learned to lather and shave the bucolic villager and the clod-buster. | |
| ‘Pejorative Terms for Midwest Farmers’ in AS XXXIII:4 265: [...] clodbuster. | |
| Bully in the Pulpit 340: Well, well, well! If it ain’t the hot-shot clod-buster that buys them expensive pies! | |
| Thumbs Down 57: That’s pretty impressive for me, a ridge-runner from Tennessee, and you, a clod-buster from Alabama. |
a rustic, a farmer.
| Rob Roy (1883) 136: The old miserly clod-breaker called me pettifogger. |
(US) a rustic, a farmer.
| Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant. | |
| ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 207: clod-hopper, -crusher, country bumpkin. |
see sense 1 above.
see separate entries.
(US) a rustic, a farmer.
| Life’s Lure 94: I was a clod-jumper and stump- grubber myself once! Now poke fun at me, will you? | |
| Son Middle Border 196: A hundred citified young men and women, fairly entitled to laugh at a clod-jumper like myself [DARE]. | |
| in Wilson Collection. |
(US) a rustic, a farmer.
| Southern Cultivator July 100/1: Mr. Editor: — Having been brought up at the plow and lived a ‘clod knocker’ for 30 years [...] I propose to make a few remarks. | |
| in PADS. | |
| in DARE. |
1. a large foot.
| DN V 20: Clod-knocker [...] foot. | |
| Amer. Thes. Sl. |
2. (also clod-smasher) a heavy shoe.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Christmas in the Bush in Life in the Aus. Backblocks 294: The old home, which has long been dull and quiet, now rings with merry laughter and glad voices, and when Bob does a jig in his clod-smashers the very roof shakes and the crockery rattles loudly on the dresser. | |
| Amer. Thes. Sl. | |
| in PADS. | |
| in DARE. |
3. a clumsy oaf; a rustic.
| in PADS. | |
| in DARE. |
see separate entry.
see separate entry.
a fool.
| Hudibras Redivivus II:10 18: When Clod-skulls, at the worst o’ th’ lay, / By brutal Rage, shall make their Way. |
stupid.
| London Spy VIII 178: A Golden Sash, which the Clod-Skull’d Hero became as well as one of his Dray-Horses would an Embroider’d Saddle. | |
| Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 43: The clod-skull’d Fraternity of Oyster-Porters [...] may get drunk therewith. | |
| York Spy 38: With Thousand ugly Grimaces, and comical Actions, and by his exquisite acquirements in the art of Tittle Tattle, [he] lugg’d the Clod-skull’d Audience by the Ears three quarters of an Hour. |
see clod-masher
In phrases
poor quality boiled beef, as served to paupers.
| Soc. for the Discharge & Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts 418: The Debtors on the Poor and Women’s-Side have eight stone (or sixty-four pounds) of beef, divided weekly amongst them, without bone, such as clods and stickings; which is paid for by the Sheriffs. | |
| Mthly Rev. 86 43: The allowance of food is fourteen ounces of bread per day, and one pound of the ‘clods and stickings of beef’ twice per week. | |
| Dict. Turf, Ring, etc. 3: A-la-mode — without further explanation — ‘beef,’ is to be understood; clods and stickings, stewed to rags and seasoned high. | |
| Reports from Committee on Secondary Punishments 7 10: They have six ounces of meat boiled, coarse pieces of meat (clods and stickings, as they are termed,) free from bone, one pound of potatoes or other vegetables, and half a pound of bread. | |
| Report from Commissioners: Prisons XX 183: The beef consisting of clods and stickings; the mutton consisting of the breast, the neck, and the ribs. | |
| Britain Redeemed & Canada Preserved 294: Sundays — 6 oz. boiled beef (clods and stickings) and potatoes. | |
| Gaslight & Daylight 308: He gorges tripe, and clods, and stickings. He is drunk with laudanumed beer and turpentined gin. | |
| Daily Tel. 24 Oct. n.p.: [...] Is the skilly we wonder most ‘beutiful’ at Stepney, or are the clods and stickings unusually free from bone [F&H]. |
a peasant, a farm labourer.
| Sporting Mag. June 107: [note] ‘Be’ant thy name Leyton?’ said a Sussex punch clod. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |