clag

English

Etymology

From Middle English claggen, probably of Scandinavian origin. Compare Swedish klägg and Old English clǣġ.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klæɡ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æɡ

Noun

clag (uncountable)

1. A glue or paste made from starch.
2. Low cloud, fog or smog.
   • 1993, Harry Furniss, Memoirs - One: The Flying Game:

     The sky was thick with dirty gray clag

   • 2001, Colin Castle, Lucky Alex: The Career of Group Captain A.M. Jardine Afc, CD, Seaman and Airman:

     This programme included practice interceptions, simulator training, day flying, night flying, clag flying -- in addition to […] [a footnote states that clag flying was Air Force slang for foul weather flying.]

   • 2004, David A. Barr, One Lucky Canuck: An Autobiography:

     We went along in the clag for what seemed like an eternity [a footnote defines clag as low cloud cover]

3. (railway slang) Unburned carbon (smoke) from a steam or diesel locomotive, or multiple unit.
4. (motor racing slang) Bits of rubber which are shed from tires during a race and collect off the racing line, especially on the outside of corners (cf. marbles).

   He ran wide in the corner, hit the clag and spun off.

Derived terms

• claggy
• clagnut

 

Verb

clag (third-person singular simple present clags, present participle clagging, simple past and past participle clagged)

1. (obsolete) To encumber
   • c. 1620, Thomas Heywood, Thomas Heywood's Art of Love: The First Complete English Translation of Ovid's Ars Amatoria:

     As when the orchard boughes are clag'd with fruite

   • 1725, Edward Taylor, Preparatory Meditations:

     Can such draw to me/My stund affections all with Cinders clag'd

2. To stick, like boots in mud
   • 1999: "A queen of a Santee kitchen, pre-war", quoted by Mary Alston Read Simms in the Introduction to Rice Planter and Sportsman: The Recollections of J. Motte Alston, 1821-1909

     Wash the rice well in two waters, if you don't wash 'em, 'e will clag [clag means get sticky] and put 'em in a pot of well-salted boiling water.

Anagrams

• GLAC

Manx

Etymology

From Old Irish cloc.

Noun

clag m (genitive singular cluig, plural cluig)

1. bell

Derived terms

• shamyr chluig, thie cluig (“belfry”)

Mutation

Manx mutation
Radical	Lenition	Eclipsis
clag	chlag	glag
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Middle Irish cloc, from Old Irish cloc. Cognates include Irish clog and Manx clag.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkʰl̪ˠak/

Noun

clag m

1. bell

Declension

Declension of clag (type I masculine noun)

Indefinite
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	clag	cluig
Genitive	cluig	chlag
Dative	clag	cluig; clagaibh✝
Definite
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	(an) clag	(na) cluig
Genitive	(a') chluig	(nan) clag
Dative	(a') chlag	(na) cluig; clagaibh✝
Vocative	chluig	chlaga

^✝ obsolete form, used until the 19th century

Derived terms

• beum-cluig
• cluigean

 

Mutation

Mutation of clag

radical	lenition
clag	chlag

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Scottish Gaelic.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

References

• Colin Mark (2003) “clag”, in The Gaelic-English dictionary, London: Routledge, →ISBN, page 138