clough

From Middle English clough, clow, clogh, Old English *clōh, from Proto-Germanic *klanhaz, *klanhō (“cleft, sluice, abyss”), of unknown origin. Cognate with Scots cleuch (“gorge; ravine”), Old High German klāh (in placenames), Old High German klingo, klinga (“brook, cataract, gulf, rapids”). Perhaps conflated or influenced by Old Norse klofi (“a cleft or rift in a hill, ravine”); compare Dutch kloof (“a slit, crevice, chink”). See also cling, clove.

• cleugh, cleuch (Scotland)

• IPA^(key): /klʌf/, /klaʊ/

• Audio of /klaʊ/ (Canadian English)

  (file)

• Audio of /klʌf/ (Canadian English)

  (file)

clough (plural cloughs)

1. (Northern England, US) A narrow valley; a cleft in a hillside; a ravine, glen, or gorge.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Nares to this entry?)

2. A sluice used in returning water to a channel after depositing its sediment on the flooded land.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

3. A cliff; a rocky precipice.
4. (dialectal) The cleft or fork of a tree; crotch.
5. (dialectal) A wood; weald.

• cloff

clough (plural cloughs)

1. Formerly an allowance of two pounds in every three hundredweight after the tare and tret are subtracted; now used only in a general sense, of small deductions from the original weight.

• “clough” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.
• clough in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.