Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und., also snoot-cloot) a cotton handkerchief.

1517		Skelton Elynour Rummynge line 143: Some with a sho clout Bynde theyr heddes about.
1532		T. More Confutation of Tyndale Answer VIII Pt II 14: The beggwely knaue had stolen y clowtes.
1542		‘Gaberlunzie Man’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) I 4: Ill bow my leg and crook my knee, / And draw a black clout owre my ee.
1550		Udall Ralph Roister Doister I v: I bring her a ring with a token in a clout.
1594		Lyly Mother Bombie I iii: Ile no more dandle my daughter, shee shall prick on a clout till her fingers ake.
c.1600		Shakespeare Hamlet II ii: Run barefoot up and down [...] a clout upon that head Where late a diadem stood.
1611		Middleton & Dekker Roaring Girle II ii: What dost thou go a-hawking after me with a red clout on thy finger?
1621		Jonson Gypsies Metamorphosed 36: Ticklefoote has lost his Clowt he sayes with a three-pence and fower tokens in it.
1633		Rowley Match at Midnight I i: A clout, a clout Sim.
1687		Proc. Old Bailey 23 Feb. n.p.: Charles Unwin of Stepney , was Tryed for stealing a double Flaxen Clout, value 4 d.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
c.1707		‘Disappointment’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) IV 79: Sissly had got a Cold I suppose, / And ’twixt her Fingers was blowing her Nose; / Harry [...] Lent her his Glove, to serve for a Clout.
1709		‘Lord Rochester against his Whore-Pipe’ Cabinet of Love (1739) 221: Have you forgot the double Clout, That lat’ly swath’d your dripping Snout?
1714		Proc. Old Bailey 9 Dec. 3/2: He found his Wife lying a-cross the Bed, with her Hands and Legs tied [and] a Clout thrust down her Throat, and another tied round her Head before her Mouth.
1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 28: Black Isaac could Bite a Clout, as dexterously as any File in Town.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 97: A Basket full of [...] Clouts, Slabbering-Bibs. [Ibid.] 151: Poor Gadbury trembled, and turned as white as a Clout.
1743		Fielding Life of Jonathan Wild (1784) I 129: A neat double clout, which seemed to have been worn a few weeks only, was pinned under her chin.
1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 43: A Wipe or Clout; a Handkerchief.
1768		(con. 1710–25) Tyburn Chronicle II in Groom (1999) xxix: A Wipe, or Clout A Handkercher.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 218: In which he steep’d a dirty clout, / And wash’d the dust and dirt clean out.
c.1785		‘Dog & Duck Rig’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 80: For fear that some gallows old scout / If you at the spell ken can hustle, / Shou’d fix you in working a clout.
1791		‘How a Flat became a Prigg’ Confessions of Thomas Mount 21: His daddles clean, he’ll slip between / A croud, a clout he’ll nap unseen.
1807		H. Tufts Autobiog. (1930) 292: Clout signifies a handkerchief.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1830		Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 309: I press upon Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., his acceptance of my fogle, my wipe, my clout, my sneezer, politely termed a silk handkerchief.
1839		H. Brandon Dict. of the Flash or Cant Lang. 162/1: Clout – a cotton handkerchief.
1854		E.L. Sloan ‘Weaver’s Triumph’ in Crawford Domestic Industry in Ireland (1972) 85: He hemmed and he ha’d, and he swore it was shameless, / Syne oot wi’ his snoot-cloot and dighted his nose .
1868		Liverpool Mercury 2 Dec. 3/1: In cant a handkerchief would be called a ‘billy’ [...] or a ‘Kent rag’; while in slang it would be called a ‘rag,’ a ‘wipe,’ or a ‘clout’.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1881		Exeter Flying Post 20 Apr. 6/6: ‘Clouts’ or white cotton ones [...] from the perquisites of the ‘Washer’.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 2: Clout - Cotton Handkerchief.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 378: In a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the smoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or kerchief.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 2: Put that down, you Jack-a-Dandy, an’ take the old clout of a belcher off your neck.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

2. (also clort) clothing.

1515–16		Skelton Magnyfycence line 1210: Nay, I tell thee, he maketh no dowtes To tourne a fole out of his clowtes.
1569–70		T. Preston Cambyses B2: Gogs hart, I haue no money in purse, ne yet in clout.
1656		in Ebsworth Choyce Drollery (1876) 70: He was not much more than a span, / All in his clouts swadling.
c.1660		‘Fryar & Boye’ in Furnivall & Hales Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript of Loose and Humorous Songs (1868) 19: Hardly on him was left a clout / to wrap his belly round about.
1707		Humours of a Coffee-House 10 Oct. 36: We shall have some Young Prophetical Imposter [...] who is to declare some strange Wonder as soon as born, and to Prophesie in his Swadling Clouts.
1725		Bailey (trans.) Erasmus’ Colloquies 285: Why all that Dress was nothing but a Cheat I had daub’d on with Paints [...] Birdlime, and Clouts dip’d in Blood.
1731		Chickens Feed Capons 16: Yet for all this be but a Man of Clouts, a meer Sir-courtly-Nice.
1744		Machine 12: I’d [...] even stitch Black Bess at Mother King’s, Nay, Moll herself, with all her Clouts and Rings.
1824		Grannie M’Nab’s Lecture on Witless Mothers and their Dandy Daughters 4: These are they the fickle farmer fixes his fancy upon, a bundle of clouts, a skeleton of bones.
1836		‘Patent S--t-Pot’ in Cockchafer 34: She pull’d up her clouts where young Thomas was laid.
1841		‘A New Song on the Birth of a Prince of Wales’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 65: Then dress him out so stylish with his little clouts and cap.
1851		M. Reid Scalp-Hunters II 164: He lay, back uppermost. He was naked to the breech-clout.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 70/2: Before her clouts had reached the ground they were on my arm, and a couple of ‘reefs’ brought the ‘poke’ within my grasp.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 44: He see right up her clouts for a split second.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 194: He still had his hand up her clout.
1981		T. Wilkinson Down and Out 39: Jackets, trousers, shirts and ties. The floor was deep in clouts which had been tried on and abandoned.
2003		C.M. Dean-Burrows I See Da Sea Rise 106: clort – cloth.

3. a sanitary towel or a nappy.

1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 30 20–27 Dec. 239: Mrs. Easy a Taylors Wife in Petticoat Lane, thickened her Plumb-porridge with her Tayle, and gleerd over her Christmas Pie with her Childs Shitten-clout.
1655		Gossips Braule 6: Did not I bring you clouts ye Whore, lend ye money to pay for the washing of your lowsy Smock, and bring you a Posset with a pox to ye, and Bread for your Whores hide.
1660		Select Queries 2 16: Whether Mrs. S- does not stop the Orifice of her C- with a Clout, to keep the old man her Husbands Rag out.
a.1661		‘A New-Years-Gift for the Rump’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) II 4: You may have heard of the Politick Snout [...] But scarce of a Parliament in a shitten Clout.
1674		T. Duffet Empress of Morocco Act III: Thus Orange looks new rub’d with piss-clout, Or scullions face besmear’d with Dish-clout.
1680		Rochester ‘On Mrs Willis’ in Works (1999) 37: I’ll write upon a double Clout, / And dip my Pen in Flowers.
1688		C. Sackville in Lord Poems on Affairs of State (1963) IV 200: That blubber’d oaf, for two, dull, dribbling bouts, Maintains two bastards made of Jenny’s clouts.
a.1690		‘Night Ramble’ Harleian Mss. 7312.84: [She] chanc’d to spy a bloody Clout. G- w-s what’s this the whore roar’d out. Nothing said I but ragg of woman Whose Tayle to me of Late was Common In short ’twas nothing but her flowers.
1709		‘Lord Rochester against his Whore-Pipe’ Cabinet of Love in Rochester & Others (1720) 221: Have you forgot the double Clout, That lat’ly swath’d your dripping Snout?
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 143: As tight a Lass as ever Did use a Double Clout.
1726		Art of Meditating over an House of Office 11: Nurses shall read Lectures upon Shitten Clouts.
1743		Proceedings Old Bailey 13 Apr. 151/2: I will see whether it be a Boy or a Girl; I took out a Pin and undid the Clout and found it to be a Girl.
a.1796		‘Rantin’ Dog The Daddie O’t’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) IV 274: O wha my baby clouts will buy?
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) I 37: With only a change of clouts, the son of don Rodrigo de Herrera was packed off in my name to another nurse, and my mother suckled her own and her master’s child.
1953		Randolph & Wilson Down in the Holler 235: clout: n. Diaper.

4. the vagina; thus generic for women.

1999		Roger’s Profanisaurus 3 in Viz 98 Oct. 8: clout 1. n. Clunge (qv). 2. n. prop. South African lesbian rock band.
2013		Esquire 1 Sept. 🌐 Shortly going [...] hit AB1 for the boozual. Usually teaming with office clout. £50 and line of Meow on the table for the first one with smelly fingers.