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Clout   Listen
noun
Clout  n.  
1.
A cloth; a piece of cloth or leather; a patch; a rag. "His garments, nought but many ragged clouts, With thorns together pinned and patched was." "A clout upon that head where late the diadem stood."
2.
A swadding cloth.
3.
A piece; a fragment. (Obs.)
4.
The center of the butt at which archers shoot; probably once a piece of white cloth or a nail head. "A'must shoot nearer or he'll ne'er hit the clout."
5.
An iron plate on an axletree or other wood to keep it from wearing; a washer.
6.
A blow with the hand. (Low)
Clout nail, a kind of wrought-iron nail heaving a large flat head; used for fastening clouts to axletrees, plowshares, etc., also for studding timber, and for various purposes.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Clout" Quotes from Famous Books



... clout, chunk, slice, clipping, chip, hunk, hunch, fragment, fillet, shard; essay, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... silence for twenty minutes or so, during which time Johnny might be supposed to have been deliberating listlessly as to whether he'd camp out on account of the heat, or turn in. But he broke the silence with a clout at a mosquito on the nape of his neck, ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... followed, first by a dish-clout, rolled tightly up and well aimed, and afterwards by his active-limbed superior. Both reached the region of smells, cruets, and crockery at the same moment, and each set energetically to work at their ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... over to hit him a clout on the head, but I did not. The sunlight was coming in through the window at the top of the stairs, and shining on the rope that was tied to the banister. The end of the rope was covered with stains, brown, with a glint of red ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... He describes for instance the Sunday games in the village, football, and the struggle for food at great feasts; [v.03 p.0394] but his eclogues were, like his Italian models, also satires on social evils. The shepherds are rustics of the Colin Clout type, and discuss the follies and corruptions around them. Barclay had, however, no sympathy with the anti-clerical diatribes of John Skelton, whom he more than once attacks. Bale mentions an Anti-Skeltonum which is lost. His other works are:—The Castell of Laboure (Wynkyn de Worde, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... group had gathered. There was John Proudfoot, the blacksmith, uncommonly awkward in a frock coat and a pair of kid gloves that sat on his great hands like a clout on a pitchfork. Dick, the miller, was there, too, with Giles Raisley, the miner; and Job Sheepshanks (by the way of treaty of peace) stood stroking the tangled mane of Gubblum Oglethorpe's pony. Children hung on the fence, ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... coin to buy for him in Thomas. With changeless pagan eyes staring a moment at me on my sack of grain, and a grunt when his purchase was set in his hands, each black-haired desert figure turned away, the bare feet moving silent, and the copper body, stark naked except the breech-clout, receding to dimness in the thorn-bush. But I lay incurious at this new vision of what our wide continent holds in fee under the single title United States, until breakfast came. This helped me, and I livened somewhat at finding the driver and the breakfast man were ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... while our hearts went up in thankfulness for deliverance from so imminent danger to life and limb. After resting awhile, we washed the blood—our blood—from our bodies, and decorating them with "what was left," somewhat after the fashion of the Indian who wears only a "breech clout," we took the scalps of the four panthers, and started on our homeward march. Our success was speedily known in the clearing, and in the evening a barbecue was had in oar honor, to furnish which a relation of the unfortunate heifer met ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... your dragon, and your panther; Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop, Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heutarit, And then your red man, and your white woman, With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials, Of lye and egg-shells, women's terms, man's blood, Hair o' the head, burnt clout, chalk, merds, and clay, Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass, And moulds of other strange ingredients, Would burst a man ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... 1841.—Clout nailmaking goes on here rather considerably, and is a very neat and pretty operation to observe. I love a smith's shop and anything relating to smithery. My ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... struck what Milton missed, Milling an English grist With homely turn and twist. He was English through and through, Not Greek, nor French, nor Jew, Though well their tongues he knew, The living and the dead: Learned Erasmus said, Hie 'unum Britannicarum Lumen et decus literarum. But oh, Colin Clout! How his pen flies about, Twiddling and turning, Scorching and burning, Thrusting and thrumming! How it hurries with humming, Leaping and running, At the tipsy-topsy Tunning Of Mistress Eleanor ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves

... hail and whirlwind of stones and glaur. Then the drums were heard beating to arms, and the soldiers were seen flying to their rendezvous. I stood composedly at the dining-room window, and was very thankful that I wasna provost in such a hurricane, when I saw poor Mr Keg, as pale as a dish clout, running to and fro bareheaded, with the town-officers and their halberts at his heels, exhorting and crying till he was as hoarse as a crow, to the angry multitude, that was raging and tossing like a sea in the market-place. ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... next to me full in the face. It knocked out two teeth, cut his mouth and his cheek so that they bled red blood hour after hour, making him hideous to look on; but the Japanese, calmly untying the clout which encased his head, bound it instead across the wound, merely cursing the enemy and not stirring an inch. The rest of us had not time to note much even of that which was taking place right alongside of us; for we had orders to be ready at any moment for a forward ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... one hit. If he don't pay as a canvasser I'll take him to town and back him to fight Les Darcy. Look out for yourself; don't you handle him!" he continued as the other approached the figure. "Leave him to me. As like as not, if you get fooling about him, he'll give you a clout ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... his hairy paw, with one tremendous clout He landed on the barber's jaw, and knocked the barber out. He set to work with tooth and nail, he made the place a wreck; He grabbed the nearest gilded youth, and tried to break his neck. And all the while his throat he held to save his vital spark, And 'Murder! Bloody Murder!' ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... thou art not able distinctly to open matters to him. The child is pricked with a pin, and lies crying in the mother's lap, but cannot show its mother where the pin is; but there is pity enough in the mother to supply this defect of the child; wherefore she undresses it, opens it, searches every clout from head to the foot of the child, and so finds where the pin is. Thus will thy lawyer do; he will search and find out thy difficulties, and where Satan seeketh an advantage of thee, accordingly will ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... submitted, he still fails, morally, mentally, socially, aesthetically, to be as much as he might be. "As much as he might be," is far too ironically mild. The average citizen of our great state to-day is, I would respectfully submit, scarcely more than a dirty clout about his ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... his comely face blanched, and glancing round, Beltane beheld Sir Pertolepe beside him, who leaned down from his great white horse to smile wry-mouthed, and smiling thus, put back the mail-coif from his pallid face and laid a finger to the linen clout that swathed ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... him of all his clothes, so that he was compelled to enter the capital in foulest condition, naked even as his mother bare him. And after some charitable wight had thrown an old robe about him and bound his head with a clout (and his unshorn hair fell over his eyes)[FN360] he fell to asking for the mansion of the Wazir Ja'afar and the folk guided him thereto. But when he would have entered the attendants suffered him not; so he stood at the gate till an old ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... gravely smoking and blinking at the scene—no doubt belonging to our corps of runners, scouts, and guides, for all were shaved, oiled, and painted for war, and, under their loosened blankets, I could see their lean and supple bodies, stark naked, except for clout and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... Indian cottons 5 ells long and each 200 reis; others describe them as fine linen each piece worth 7s. 6d. to 8s. The bank-note was the "Indian piece or Mulech, a young black about twenty years of age, worth 20 Mil Keys (dollars) each." (Carli.) In the Barbots' day each "coin-clout") was equivalent to 2d.; some were unmarked, whilst others bore the Portuguese arms single or double. The wilder Kru-men still keep up their "buyapart" ( 25 cents), a cloth 4 inches square and thickly sewn ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... tenacious of their ancestral habitudes as the Scythians[271] who made Tomi a prison, and the descendants of the earlier English settlers had degenerated as much as the Mix-Hellenes who disgusted the Latin poet. Spenser himself looked on his life in Ireland as a banishment. In his "Colm Clout's come Home again" he tells us that Sir Walter Raleigh, who visited him in 1589, and heard what was then finished ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... "What's clout?" inquired he. Then, feeling his ears, "My ears don't stick out like that man's over there, ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... have told you that he had times of peace, when the agony forsook him, and left him limp like a wet clout. Then he would sweat and quake with terror of the pains that would return; and so pitiful was his condition that he could not even listen with a proper patience to the reading of Scripture or the singing of David's psalms. You will see from this what a terrible visitation to a God-fearing man ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... ye?' A shrewd clout behind the ear with the butt of the dog whip stretched the animal in the snow, quivering softly, a yellow ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London

... and then turned and looked at 'im. Her face was so close to his, that, thinking that she 'ad put it there a-purpose, he kissed it, and the next moment 'e got a clout ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs

... Clifton, the moment he saw him. "Just you wait a bit. I'll teach you to dance: with the clogs on your hands and your head downwards, damn it! Here, take this to go on with!" continued Pa, fetching him a clout on the shoulder. "And get to the bikes and hurry up, or I'll smash your ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... He went beyond them in all which bespoke possession of the skill and courage necessary to make a patient and expert hunter, or a brave and successful warrior. In the game of archery, his arrow was ever nearest the clout, and in hurling the spear, his oftenest clove asunder the reed which was fixed as the mark. Ere he had seen fifteen harvestings of the maize, he could throw the stoutest man of the tribe in the wrestle, and ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... he, laughing, but his face was pale. He could cheat with his words, but I saw his face bleacht like a linen clout behind his laugh, and I swear at that time he loved me, though he loved advancement better. "You are bright and early, young woman! Are you for the garden, to get you a stomach for breakfast? Well, so-so! and pray for poor Presto ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... their ancestors were subjected, render it very probable that it may have occurred as narrated. When Gipsies were hung and transported merely for being Gipsies, it is not unlikely that a persecution to death may have originated in even such a trifle as the alleged theft of a dish-clout. ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland

... of this country are much like those of the islands, but their foreheads are not so high, neither did they appear to have any religion. There are several languages or dialects among them, and for the most part they go naked, except the clout before mentioned, though some of them wore a kind of short jerkin without sleeves, reaching to the navel. Their arms and bodies have figures wrought upon them with fire, which gave them an odd appearance; some having lions or deer, and others castles, with towers or other strange figures ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... Biddy's,' says she, stepping at me, with a black stripe across her face, she was that destroyed with rage, and I stepped back and held up me basket between us, she being bigger than I, and I getting no chance, and herself slipped and fell, and her nose got a clout with the hard edge of the basket, it would trouble the saints to say how, and then I picked her up and wint home with her to thry and quinch the blood. Sure I was sorry for the crathur an' she having such a ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett

... He was abundant, ranging in herds of hundreds along the pampas of the great Thames valley, and furnished forth abundant food for man as well as the wild beasts, when they could capture him. His skin, though, was not counted of much worth. Its short hair afforded little warmth in cloak or breech-clout, and the tanned pelt became hard and uncomfortable when it dried after a wetting. Still, there were various uses for this horse's hide. It made fine strings and thongs, and the beast's flesh, as has been ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... got out about fifteen miles on the road, an Apache Indian appeared, and so suddenly that it seemed as if he must have sprung up from the ground. He was in full war dress—that is, no dress at all except the breech clout and moccasins—and his face and whole naked body were stained in many colors in the most hideous manner. In his scalp lock was fastened a number of eagle feathers, and of course he wore two or three necklaces of beads and wampum. ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... to write his masterpiece The Faery Queen. Raleigh, to whom the first three books were read, was so impressed by the beauty of the work that he hurried the poet off to London, and gained for him the royal favor. In the poem "Colin Clout's Come Home Again" we may read Spenser's account of how the court impressed him after ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... 'See ye nought That young man, that hath shoon bought, And strong leather to do hem clout [patch], And grease to smear hem all about? He weeneth to live hem to wear: But, by my soul, I dare well swear, His wretched life he shall for-let [lose], Ere he come to his ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... pleasure, night, or noon, or morn. Help me, ye gipsies, bring him home again, And to a constant lass give back her swain. Have I not sat with thee full many a night, When dying embers were our only light, When every creature did in slumber lie, Besides our cat, my Colin Clout, and I? No troublous thoughts the cat or Colin move, While I alone am kept awake by love. Remember, Colin, when at last year's wake I bought the costly present for thy sake: Could thou spell o'er the posy on thy knife, And with another change thy state of life? If thou forget'st, I wot I can ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... Christian-named no record has yet been found, though the surname Dyneley or Dinley occurs in the Whalley registers and elsewhere. In the Eclogue of the Shepheardes Calendar, to which this note is appended, Colin Clout—so the poet designates himself—complains to Hobbinol—that is, Harvey—of the ill success of his passion. Harvey, we may suppose, is paying him a visit in the North; or perhaps the pastoral is merely a versifying of what passed between them in ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales

... And fear not shattered rib or jaw As risk a smash from Martin's paw. I've seen him in the days of yore His fist crash through a panel door. Martin soon ran his wild race out, For "Doctor" Whitney with a "clout" Of a great bludgeon laid him out Heady for post mortem and bier, Thus ended Martin's rough career. Ah! those were happy halcyon days, Well worthy of immortal lays. Here I must summon from the band Of ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... a damn to gie the daashed scoon'rel a fair clout wi' it," he said. "The daashed thing micht come ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... bread, you old so-and-so.' And where am I to get bread for him? What claim has he? Am I a millionaire to feed every drunkard that passes? They are half-blind with spite. . . . They have no cross on them, the devils . . . . They'll give you a clout on the ear and not think twice about it: 'Give us bread!' Well, one gives it. . . . One is not going to fight with them, the idols! Some of them are two yards across the shoulders, and a great fist as big as ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... line from the bottom. Change breech-clout. It's a word that you love and I abominate. I would take that and "offal" out ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... and give me room to chafe in Mine own room, and my liberty: why Maid there, Open I say, and do not anger me, I am subject to much fury: when, ye Dish-clout? When do ye come? asleep ye lazie Hell-hound? Nothing intended, but your ease, and eating? No body here? why Wife, why Wife? why Jewel? No tongue to answer me? pre'thee, good Pupil, Dispense a little with thy careful ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... These seem to be the chief; for besides them we saw also shock curl pated New Guinea negroes, many of which are slaves to the others, but I think not all. They are very poor, wear no clothes but have a clout about their middle, made of the rinds of the tops of palmetto trees; but the women had a sort of calico cloth. Their chief ornaments are blue and yellow beads, worn about their wrists. The men arm themselves with bows and arrows, lances, broad swords, ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... and napped while the gyrojet carried him to his villa outside Dakar. Safely down on the roof of the comfortable, automatic white house, he took the lift down to his second-floor suite, where he showered and changed into evening sandals and clout. He redonned his gloves, then rode down another two flights to the terrace, where Elise was waiting for him in a gossamer-thin iridescent eggshell sari. They kissed and she patted the place on the love-seat beside her. She ...
— It's All Yours • Sam Merwin

... eel. And then what wad a' the country about do for want o' auld Edie Ochiltree, that brings news and country cracks frae ae farm-steading to anither, and gingerbread to the lasses, and helps the lads to mend their fiddles, and the gudewives to clout their pans, and plaits rush-swords and grenadier caps for the weans, and busks the laird's flees, and has skill o' cow-ills and horse-ills, and kens mair auld sangs and tales than a' the barony besides, and gars ilka body laugh wherever ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... godfather "to the first heyre" of Shakespeare's "invention," his first published poem. In 1594 Shakespeare also dedicated to Southampton his Lucrece, in terms of greater intimacy, though no less respect. On December 27, 1595, Edmund Spenser's Colin Clout's Come Home Againe contained a reference which is now generally ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... The valor of the gen'ral and his troops; And seeing this affair must end in blood, I brought a clout, ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... I'm sair obleeged to ye for giein' that vratch, Jamie Ogg, a guid doonsettin'. He's a coorse crater; but the warst maun hae meat, an' sae I didna like to refeese him when he cam for wark. But its a greater kin'ness to clout him nor to cleed him. They say ye made an awfu' munsie o' him. But it's to be houpit he'll live to thank ye. There's some fowk 'at can respeck no airgument but frae steekit neives; an' it's fell cruel to haud it frae them, gin ye hae't to gie them. I hae had eneuch ado to haud my ain ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... time? I know where you got that blue suit of clothes, and I know who had it before you got it. If you still think that a bully in charity clothes can make fun of a boy in clothes that he earned with his own labor, just say so, and I'll give you another clout ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... count, And Oliver; the dozen peers around; A thousand score of Franks in armour found. Marsile the king fought with them there, so proud; He and Rollanz upon that field did joust. With Durendal he dealt him such a clout From his body he cut the right hand down. His son is dead, in whom his heart was bound, And the barons that service to him vowed; Fleeing he came, he could no more hold out. That Emperour has chased him well enow. The king implores, you'll ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... were white as onny clout, An' they said niver a word, T'hey couldn't tell what the ghost was like, Whether 'twas ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... also that my head seemed suddenly to grow chill, and that I noticed, as I drove away, that the scat of the vehicle was so sharply aslant and slippery that for me to retain my position behind Kuzma was impossible; also that he seemed to have turned all flabby, and to be waving about like a dish clout. But what I remember best is that throughout the whole of that evening I never ceased to feel that I was acting with excessive stupidity in pretending to be enjoying myself, to like drinking a great deal, and to be in no way drunk, as well as that every one else present was acting with equal ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... tom-toms, and the squaws beat on them while the Indians, all painted hideously, jumped stiff legged, cut themselves until they were covered with blood and sweat and yowled their hideous war whoop. They were naked excepting their breech clout. Sargeant Jones had control of all the guns at the fort, and unknown to us, the cannon were all trained on the dancers. We could not understand why the soldiers were so near us, but later in the day learned that there was a soldier for everyone ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... out the close, and some o' the dirty jaups splashed about his shins. But was I to blame for that?—ye maun walk wide o' a whalebone besom if ye dinna want to be splashed. Afore I kenned where I was, he up wi' a dirty washing-clout and slashed me in the face wi't! I hit him a thud in the ear—as wha wadna? Out come his mither like a fury, skirling about her hoose, and her servants, and her weans. 'Your servant!' says I—'your servant! You're a nice-looking trollop to ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... "She will clout thee blind, Jack, as she clouted the Chaplain," cried one of the company. "No man that lives can tame her. She is the fiercest shrew in England, as she is ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... what was going on through one of the main-deck ports. A heavy squall, as he spoke, carried away the fore and main-top-masts. It was no easy matter for us to refrain from cheering at the accident, but the probability of getting a clout on our heads, and being sent below for our patriotism, kept us silent. "There's no fear now, that before many hours are over we shall be under our own flag again," whispered Tony to me. "The same mishap which has occurred to the Frenchman may befall our friends," I answered. "There are but two ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... of forests, became the pilot of our voyage up Lake Moosetocmaguntic. We shoved off in a bateau, while Joseph Bourgogne, sad at losing us, stood among the stumps, waving adieux with a dish-clout. We had solaced his soul with meed of praise. And now, alas! we left him to the rude jokes and half-sympathies of the lumbermen. The artist-cook saw his appreciators vanish away, and his proud dish-clout ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... money's what but a silly lie? 'Twas all sour grapes—sour grapes. He had cunning enough for envy, and pride enough for shame; and at last there was naught but cunning left wherewith to patch up a clout for him and his shame to be gone in. I watched him set out on his pestilent pilgrimage, crazed and stubborn, and not a groat to ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare

... of fighting is no just the canniest, but I like you no the worse for it. You might have got off without thon bloody clout on the top of your head if ye'd just clodded stones and then run like the rest of them. But that's no your way of fightin'. Did ye ever ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... collar be not bigger in one place than in another boil it in water and salt, or amongst other beef, boil it very tender in a cloth as you do brawn, and being tender boil'd take it up, and put it into a hoop to fashion it upright and round, then keep it dry, and take it out of the clout, and serve it whole with mustard and sugar, or some gallendines. If lean, lard ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May

... was devilish cold. His wretched body was beginning to cry out with discomfort. A loop of his hat was broken and the loose flap was a conduit for the rain down his back. His old ridingcoat was like a dish-clout, and he felt icy about the middle. Separate streams of water entered the tops of his ridingboots—they were a borrowed pair and too big for him—and his feet were in puddles. It was only by degrees that he realised this misery. Then in the boggy ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... some words in secret, after gaue the patient a powder like the ashes of wood, which was to be boiled in running water, and with it to wash the vlcer, after certaine clouts were to be applyed, with speciall care to lay that side of the clout vnto the sore, which was by him crossed, and marked; and all these clothes must at once be bound vpon it, and euery day the lowest remoued or taken away: thus in short time that anguish and griefe ceased; but not ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts

... with a sort of visor made from the beak of a hornbill, the whole surmounted by a bunch of yard-long tail-feathers from some bright-plumaged bird. When the presentation was concluded all the chieftain had left was his breech-clout. He did not share in my enthusiasm. From the murderous glance which he shot at me when the Regent was not looking, I judged that if he ever met me alone in the jungle he would get his shield back, with another scalp to add to his collection. ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... himself, so that he was presently left alone. Now he looks aside, and sees something bright-hued lying under a big stone where the last rays of the sun just caught some corner of it. So he goes thither, deeming that mayhappen one of the company had dropped something, pouch or clout, or what not, in his haste and hurry. He got off his horse to pick it up, and when he had laid hand on it found it to be a hands-breadth of fine green cloth embroidered with flowers. He held it in his hand a while ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... blackness of a dungeon. He felt among the inner folds of his ragged blanket, withdrew a small object and thrust it into his mouth. A second later the blanket was snatched from his body leaving him clad only in a breech clout, and he was given a push into the lane as a hint that his ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... to get on with her work, for when I finished a chapter I bounded downstairs to read it to her, and so short were the chapters, so ready was the pen, that I was back with new manuscript before another clout had been added to the rug. Authorship seemed, like her bannock-baking, to consist of running between two points. They were all tales of adventure (happiest is he who writes of adventure), no characters were allowed within if I knew ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie

... the earthen pot is an enamelled urn, The clout hung out to dry a noble banner, The hay-rick by thy favour boasts a golden cape, And the rick's little sister, the thatched hive, Wears, by thy ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... barke of trees.] There are neere to the sea vpon this Riuer diuers inhabitants, which are mighty bigge men and go al naked except some thing before their priuie parts, which is like a clout about a quarter of a yard long made of the barke of trees, and yet it is like a cloth: for the barke is of that nature, that it will spin small after the maner of linnen. [Sidenote: The Negroes race ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... the forties. His features, although somewhat flat and broad, created a favourable impression at first; upon closer scrutiny, however, the eyes modified that impression. They were small, and their look piercing rather than bright. His costume was limited to a tattered breech-clout of buckskin. A collar of small white shells encircled the neck, and from this necklace dangled a triangular piece of alabaster, flat, and with a carving on it suggesting the shape of a dragon-fly. His hair streamed loose over the left ear, where there was ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... barley Out of the baker's shop; The baker came out, and gave him a clout, And made that ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... speaks of 'that nearness to her Majesty which I still enjoy,' and directly contradicts the rumour of his disgrace. This, however, is not in accordance with the statement made by Spenser in his poem of Colin Clout's come home again, in which he says that all Raleigh's speech at ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... you how I think you will succeed in driving away the evil eye. It seems to me that it has not been cast on your cows, but on your dishes. Gang hame and tak' a' your dishes down to the burn, and let them lie awhile in the running stream; then rub them well and dry with a clean clout. Tak' them hame and fill each with boiling water. Pour it out and lay them aside to dry. The evil eye cannot withstand boiling water. Sca'd it out and ye'll get butter." The prescription was followed, and a ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... though his huge, muscular frame showed no effects of an illness. He had a jagged, bluish scar over one eye, which traveled up his forehead and disappeared beneath his hair, plainly the result of some terrible clout. But it was not these things, not his face or size which drew me to him; it was ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... the air often, but sometimes getting in a solid blow on hard black flesh. I was soundly beaten myself, pricked with spears, and made to caper for savage sport. Suddenly I saw Laputa before me, and hurled myself madly at his chest. Some one gave me a clout on the head, ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... which every class or grade in civilization treats its own social conventions, whatever they may be, as final, and as having some subtle but necessary connection with morals. When the Indian squats round the tribal pot in his breech-clout, and eats his dinner with his dirty paw, he is fully satisfied that he is as well equipped, both as regards dress and manners, not only as a man need be, but as a man ought to be. The toilet, the chamber, ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... until I am drenched with his superiority. It was in my education to concede some license of the kind in this case, but the holy father of a porter and the saintly cabman occupied the middle distance imperturbably, and did not come down from their hills to clout me with knowledge. From this fact I experienced a criminal elation. I lost view of the idea that if I had been brow-beaten by porters and cabmen from one end of the United States to the other end I should warmly like ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... speech was received with loud hurrahs; everyone, in the prevailing suspense and discouragement, preferred to "take the wipe of the dish-clout" and have done with it. Rifles were examined to see that they were in good order, belts were refilled with cartridges. As they had eaten their soup that morning, the men were obliged to content themselves with ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... an old clout," he continued, "and slashed it across my face, saying, 'Take that, pale face! Take that, man with a woman's skirts on!' and 'Take that!' howled a young buck, fetching the flat of his dagger across me forehead, close-cropped hair giving no grip for scalping, not to mention ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... I think. Oh, I remember—the 'Stowmarket Mystery'—and he stayed at the hotel where Flossie was engaged. How she ever came to take notice of him, I can't imagine. She was a queer sort of girl—used to wear bloomers, and get off her bike to clout the small ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy

... ants; tho the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... noble father laid on thee, When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper, And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes; And then to dry them gav'st the Duke a clout Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland;— His curses, then from bitterness of soul Denounc'd against thee, are all fallen upon thee; And God, not we, hath ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... escouillon (ecouvillon), "a wispe, or dish-clowt; a maukin, or drag, to cleanse, or sweepe an oven." Ecouvillon is a derivative of Lat. scopa, broom. Now another French word, which means both "kitchen servant" and "dish-clout," is souillon, from souiller, to soil. What share each of these words has in Eng. scullion is hard to say. The only thing certain is that scullion is not originally related to scullery, Old Fr. escuelerie, a collective from Old Fr. escuelle ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... course, is hopeless for a holiday. One must be near one's tailor in May to see about one's summer clothes. Choosing a flannel suit in May is one of the moments of one's life—only equalled by certain other great moments at the hosier's and hatter's. "Ne'er cast a clout till May be out" says a particularly idiotic saw, but as you have already disregarded it by casting your fur coat, you may as well go through with the business now. Socks; I ask you to think of summer socks. ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... turn a well-drawn shaft," said a third. "Shoot dead upon him and you will be clap in the clout." ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... you, hein? sink it will come out,"—Pericles eyed Merthyr with a subtle smile askew,—"I have sot so;—it will come out when she is one day in a terrible scene . . . Mon Dieu! it was a terrible scene for me when I looked on ze clout zat washed ze blood of ze terrible assassination. So goes out a voice, possibly! Divine, you say? We are a machine. Now, you behold, she has faints. It may happen at my concert where she sings to-morrow night. You saw me in my carriage ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... mendicants go almost naked, usually with nothing but the smallest possible breech clout around their loins, which the police require them to wear; they plaster their bodies with mud, ashes and filth; they rub clay, gum and other substances into their hair to give it an uncouth appearance. Sometimes ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... wonderful. That in which the drunken Pistol is driven downstairs is the finest tavern scene ever written. Those placed in Gloucestershire are the perfect poetry of English country life. The talk of old dead Double, who could clap "i' the clout at twelvescore," and is now dead, as we shall all be soon; the casting back of memory to Jane Nightwork, still alive, though she belongs to a time fifty-five years past, when a man, now old, heard the chimes at midnight; the order to sow the headland, ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... his red brother of the plains, the theatrical aid of impressive costume. Tall, spare and erect, his sinewy legs and arms bare almost their entire length, his moccasins worn and faded, but his fillet, camisa and trailing breech-clout almost snowy white; destitute of plume, feather, necklace, armlet, ornament of any kind, unarmed, yet unafraid, with slow and measured stop the chief approached the council tent, three of his warriors in ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... had passed, and I could again see clearly, the warrior was standing upon the Stone of Sacrifice—naked save for his breech-clout, and armed with a round shield and a maccahuitl of hardened gold. The monk still wore his flowing habit, whence the hood had fallen back, so that his head was bare; in one hand he held his crucifix, and with the other he ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... me the good red gold, And some they give me the white money, And some they give me a clout o' meal, For they be ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling

... missionaries, but there was refined etiquette in China, and an interchange of many of the pleasantest courtesies of modern civilisation, when we noble Britons were grubbing in the forest, painted savages with a clout. ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... window, which was barred, and almost totally eclipsed by shrubs; but a clout of sky was just visible under the architrave. It was a very gray sky; gray also was Rachel's face in the sudden grip of horror and surmise. Then a ragged edge of cloud caught golden fire, a glimmer found its way into the dust and ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... at all, a stage of civilization distinctly in advance of many of our treaty Indians to the south after twenty-five years of education. Instead of paint and feathers, the scalp-lock, the breech-clout, and the buffalo-robe, there presented itself a body of respectable-looking men, as well dressed and evidently quite as independent in their feelings as any like number of average pioneers in the East. Indeed, I had seen there, in my youth, ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... and the Cure must remember how I pledged my honour that they should be at Saumur, and so they were: but Michael Stein is an awful black man to deal with when his back is up: he thinks no more of giving a clout with his hammer, than another man does of a rap with ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... Leslie proceeded direct to the island where, having landed Flora, he proceeded, with some difficulty, to rouse the savages, and supply them with food and drink. They proved to be, as Leslie had said, a pair of fine, well-made men, naked, save for a kind of breech-clout round their loins, of sturdy physique, and apparently but little the worse for their adventure. Nor were they especially unprepossessing in appearance, although there was a certain character of ruthlessness in the expression of their eyes and about their mouths and chins that caused Leslie to determine ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... scorne: but I beeing strucken in a cold sweat, crept between their legs for shame and escaped away. So I disfigured returned home againe, and covered the losse of myne ears with my long hair, and glewed this clout to my face to hide my shame. As soon as Bellephoron had told his tale, they which sate at the table replenished with wine, laughed heartily. And while they drank one to another, Byrrhena spake to me and said, from the first foundation of this city ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... and the minister's wife coost out. Guess ye what it was about? Black puddin', dish-clout, Eerie, orrie, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... by the way Weeping for sorrow, I saw a simple man me by, Upon the plow hanging. His coat was of a clout That cary[8] was called; His hood was full of holes, And his hair out; With his knopped[9] shoon Clouted full thick; His toes totedun[10] out As he the land treaded; His hosen overhung his hockshins On ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... whistle is heard in the outer darkness, and a dozen forms, lithe and lean, dressed only with the narrow white breech-clout and mocassins, and daubed with white earth until they seem a group of living marbles, come bounding through the entrance, yelping like wolves, and slowly moving round the fire. As they advance, in single file, they throw their bodies into diverse ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... Walter Raleigh found him sitting "alwaies idle," as it seemed to his restless friend, "among the cooly shades of the green alders by the Mulla's shore" in a visit made memorable by the poem of "Colin Clout's ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... old malefactors four days running, as I have said; four times we got within range of him and four times he broke away. He carried a few bullets away with him beneath his hide, indeed, but a lot he cared about that! He gave one or two of our badly-aiming huntsmen a clout on the head which sent them flying, stripped the skin from the head of one of the beaters and then took refuge in the wilderness. Friend Leonard and the other gentlemen now wanted to abandon the chase, for they were frightfully ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... the story of Florimel and the Witch's son; the Gardens of Adonis, and the Bower of Bliss; the Mask of Cupid; and Colin Clout's vision, in the last book. But some people will say that all this may be very fine, but that they cannot understand it on account of the allegory. They are afraid of the allegory, as if they thought it would bite them: they look at it as a child ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... fingering her money as if that was her chief delight;" of poor Feeblemind of the town of Uncertain, with his "whitely look, the cast in his eye, and his trembling speech;" of Littlefaith, as "white as a clout," neither able to fight nor fly when the thieves from Dead Man's Lane were on him; of Ready-to-halt, at first coming along on his crutches, and then when Giant Despair had been slain and Doubting Castle demolished, taking ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... up something. They've got some Indians in it too. Saw them rehearsing old Thunder Mountain the other day in nothing but a breech-clout." ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Pecan are neither squaws, dogs, nor ponies; only men, naked to the breech clout, their bodies brightly painted from hip to head, chequered like a hatchment, or the jacket of a stage harlequin, with its fantastic devices, some ludicrous, others grotesque; still others of aspect terrible—showing ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... treachery and in spite of the warnings of Antoine, offering no obstruction to their approach, has allowed them to enter the camp. What madness! They have divested themselves of their buffalo-robes, and appear naked to the breech-clout and armed with bows and arrows, tomahawks, and scalping knives. Six or seven only come in at first, but others quickly follow, dropping in by twos and threes until a score or more are collected around ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... heard the yell when the beggar cleared the bar first shot! Dig and I went mad; and somebody had to clout us on the head before we could take it in that the fun wasn't over. Of course it was not. Pas un morceau de il—we'd tied them; but ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... discipline being carried on in his own house ashore. At any rate, it is quite certain that his wife frequently appeared at church with red eyes after her lord and master had held his usual Sunday forenoon inspection of the house, and had discovered a cockroach in the kitchen or a dish-clout in the scullery, while it was true that he permitted his three children to wear good conduct badges, each carrying with them the sum of 1d. per week, after three months' exemplary behaviour. But only one of them, Tony, aged 18 ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... all! Nothing but filth and mud, however you knock at your coffin lid at night, when the dead arise, however you cry: 'Let me out, kind people, to live in the light of day! My life was no life at all; my life has been thrown away like a dish-clout; it was drunk away in the tavern at the Haymarket; let me out, kind people, to live ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky

... remark that women were capable of learning anything which you will that they should know. The figures in this pas de deux appear frequently to have terminated in what children, with their customary coarseness of speech, are pleased to call "wringing the dish-clout"—clasping the hands, throwing the arms above the head and turning rapidly, each as on a pivot, without loosing the hands of the other, and resting ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... her mind's sight the hard features, the bold eyes, the slight smile, the coarse face of Haze Ruff. She had forgotten him. But he now returned. And with memory of him flashed a revelation as to his meaning in her life. He had appeared merely a clout, a ruffian, an animal with man's shape and intelligence. But he was the embodiment of the raw, crude violence of the West. He was the eyes of the natural primitive man, believing what he saw. He had seen ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... dark form cautiously came along, careful not to break a twig beneath his moccasined feet. He was naked except for a breech-clout. The tuft of feathers fastened to his "top-knot" and the paint on his face indicated that he ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... I work in brass, A tinkler is my station: I've travell'd round all Christian ground In this my occupation; I've taen the gold, an' been enrolled In many a noble squadron; But vain they search'd when off I march'd To go an' clout the cauldron. I've taen the ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... was about eleven o'clock at the time, I thought I had better hurry in case there was another Flushing-bound train. So I scuttled towards the door only to receive another heavy clout from the sentry's rifle. What the interpreter really said was "Ah! No, you can't go!" As I rubbed my bruised head I treated that interpreter to a candid opinion of his English speaking qualifications, but he did not ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... deceiver and in his charms, and look now, how that great fetish-man hangs from the elephant's trunk and is crying "Aka!" to arouse the pity of the white master. Where is his power? Where are his charms? Why does not any wicked Mzimu roar in his defense? Ah! What is this, their Mzimu? A clout of monkey skin and piece of wood hollowed through decay which the elephant will tread to pieces. Among the Wahimas, neither the women nor the children would be afraid of such a Mzimu, and M'Rua and his men ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... out, with a great many grieving aggravations to a parent to find himself tricked and defeated in the expectations of his son's marrying handsomely, and to his advantage; instead of which, he is obliged to receive a dish-clout for a daughter-in-law, and see his family propagated by a race of beggars, and yet perhaps as haughty, as insolent, and as expensive, as if she had blessed the family with a lady of fortune, and brought a fund with her to have supported the ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... way to go to Bursley Station, that is," said Amy, observing that Constance was descending King Street instead of crossing it into Wedgwood Street. And she caught Spot 'a fair clout on the head,' to indicate to him that she had him alone in ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... the Injun an' asks him what in creation he's kickin' me for; an' if he couldn't wake me without killin' me. Old-pot-head's son yells back that he hasn't touched me. Then you bet I was scared; for the thing hauls off agen an' gives me a clout that knocks the wind plum' ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... wonder if the man has discovered that I have entered, and is showing off his poverty in order to make fun of me. Shall I kill him, or is the poor devil talking in his sleep? [He takes a look.] But see! This thing wrapped in a ragged bath-clout, now that I inspect it by the light of my candle, is in truth a jewel-casket Suppose I take it. But no! It is hardly proper to rob a man of good birth, who is as poor as I am. ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... repent a snout that's bent, And if again I tap it, Oh, with a clout I'll bend that snout With force enough to ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay

... of hide, mingling fraternally with their tufted and bepainted visitors, as well as with those rangers, both envied and hated, the savage coureurs de bois of the far Northern fur trade; men bearded, silent, stern, clad in breech-clout and leggings like any savage, as silent, as stoical, as hardy on the trail as on the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... his face she referred to him as a doited sumph, but to Grizel pleading for him she admitted that despite his warts and quarrelsome legs he was a great big muckle sonsy, stout, buirdly well set up, wise-like, havering man. When first Corp had proposed to her, she gave him a clout on the head; and so little did he know of the sex that this discouraged him. He continued, however, to propose and she to clout him until he heard, accidentally (he woke up in church), of a man in the Bible who had wooed a woman for seven ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... in both states, a piece of copper in both states, a piece of brass in both states, a piece of iron in both states, a piece of steel in both states, a piece of tinfoil, a piece of solder, a screw, a clasp nail, a clout nail, a hob nail, a spike nail, a sparable, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... gentleman," said I, standing up and taking off MacMuir's coat, "and call me a lubberly clout like yourself, and we will see which is the better clout." I put off the longsleeved jacket, and faced him with my fists doubled, crying: "I'll teach you, you spawn of a dunghill, to speak ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... accumulate until almost everything known as property in Indian life will be ventured. It sometimes takes several days to arrange these preliminaries. A pleasant afternoon is selected, and the contestants appear. They are usually very nearly naked, having on only moccasins, a breech-clout and a head-dress; the two latter articles, being susceptible of ornamentation, are usually adorned with eagle feathers, foxtails, or a string of sleigh-bells about the player's waist. The men are painted in the most grotesque and fantastic manner. It is not unusual to see some of them painted ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... Janet, woman, look, look look!—do ye see wha it is! Confound me, if it isna the very chield that I gied the clout in the lug to in your mother's the other night for his good behaviour. Weel, as sure as death, I gie him credit for what he has done—he's ta'en the measure o' their feet, onyway! A knight!—he's nae mair a knight than I'm ane—but it ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... to this garden by way of clumps of bamboo grass. You see the Smell was right when it talked of meeting old friends. Half-a-dozen blue-black pines are standing akimbo against a real sky—not a fog-blur nor a cloud-bank, nor a gray dish-clout wrapped round the sun—but a blue sky. A cherry tree on a slope below them throws up a wave of blossom that breaks all creamy white against their feet, and a clump of willows trail their palest green shoots in front of all. ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... characterized as "an attempt to navigate a sardine dish with Great Eastern machinery"; and it suggested also the Indian chief humorously mentioned by Irving as generously "decked out in cocked hat and military coat, in contrast with his breech clout and leathern leggins, being grand officer at top and ragged Indian at bottom." [Footnote: Bonneville, p. 34.] Whatever may be said by credulous and enthusiastic authors to decorate this Indian pueblo, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... my Friends, we are (in Yorick Sterne's words) but as "turkeys driven with a stick and red clout, to the market": or if some drivers, as they do in Norfolk, take a dried bladder and put peas in it, the rattle thereof ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... gentleman and a pretty fellow, for all that.—Madam, says I, you may think your cousin looks like a psalm-singing weaver, in that bare felt, and with that rascally brown cloak; that band, which looks like a baby's clout, and those loose boots, which have a whole calf-skin in each of them,—but let him wear on the one side of his head a castor, with a plume befitting his quality; give him a good Toledo by his side, with a broidered belt and an inlaid hilt, instead of the ton of iron contained in that basket-hilted ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... normal times to sit And watch the workings of your wayward wit, But in these bitter days of storm and stress, When souls are shown in all their nakedness, Your devastating egotism stands out Denuded of the last remaining clout. You own our cause is just, yet can't refrain From libelling those who made its justice plain; You chide the Prussian Junkers, yet proclaim Our statesmen beat them at their ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various

... "A clout on the side of it 'ud do 'im good!" pronounced the stoker, who was as thin and saturnine as the engineer was stout and good-humored. "Boys ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... variety of signs, but we could not comprehend the meaning he intended to convey. In appearance he greatly resembled the slaves I had seen at Zanzibar, on board the Arab dhows, though better-looking. Like most of them, he had but a clout round his waist, and his woolly hair was cropped close. Still he evidently did not lack intelligence. It was very tantalising to find that we could get no information out of him. The little girl was equally unable to give an account of herself, ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston

... freed and at once set to work to perform a similar task for Captain Folsom, who meantime had regained his senses and apparently was injured no more severely than Jack, having like him received a clout on the side of the head. Tom explained the situation while untying him. Fortunately, the bonds in all cases had been ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... almost of heroic proportions; he was clad in but a breech-clout, and was so broad as to appear squat in stature. He carried a short club, and appeared almost as dumbfounded as the two Americans. A moment he regarded them, then, with a ferocious snarl of rage, he hurled himself upon the startled Ward and half clubbed, ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg

... coveted in all ages, especially in this last century of years, by people of all sorts, though never so mean and mechanical; every man strains his fortune to keep his children at school; the cobbler will clout it till midnight, the porter will carry burdens till his bones crack again, the ploughman will pinch both back and belly to give his son learning, and I find that this ambition reigns no where so much as in this island. But, under ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various

... rule in Egypt and Syria and a clout hung over the door shows that women are bathing. I have heard, but only heard, that in times and places when eunuchs went in with the women youths managed by long practice to retract the testicles so as to pass for castratos. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... ha' farmed for fifty year," cried honest Roger Clout, "yet never have I seen the mate to yonder little maid, nor heard the like o' such a tale! Wife, wife!" he cried, in a voice as round and full of hearty cheer as one who calls his own cattle home across his own fat fields. "Come hither, Moll—here's company for ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... their luxuriant growth of coarse black hair tumbling about their shoulders and trimmed off in a "bang" just level with their fierce, beady eyes, being all the head covering they needed. But the breech-clout was universal and some few even wore loose cotton shirts. These, with the moccasin and leggin invariably worn, the leggin generally in a dozen folds at the ankle, made the war toilet of the intractable Tonto. There ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King

... willingly accompanied the party, though he had very little notion where they were going. Reaching a boat, they were made to tumble in, some resisting and endeavouring to get away; but a gentle prick from the point of a cutlass, or a clout on the head, made them more reasonable, and most of them sat down resigned to their fate. One of them, however, a stout fellow, when the boat had got some distance from the shore, striking out right and left at the men nearest him, sprang overboard, and before the boat could ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... merry whistling, and glancing up, beheld a country fellow approaching down a side lane. He wore a wide-eaved hat and his smock was new-washed and speckless; but that which drew and held my eyes, that which brought me to a sudden stand, was the bundle he bore wrapped in a fair, white clout. So, with my gaze on this I stood leaning on my knotted, untrimmed staff, waiting him. Suddenly, chancing to turn his head, he espied me, halted in his stride, then eyeing me askance, advanced again. A small man he was, with rosy face, little, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... was cast out I was a child.... If I did weave some clout Of raiment, would he keep the vesture now He wore in childhood? Should my weaving grow As his limbs grew?... 'Tis lost long since. No more! O, either 'twas some stranger passed, and shore His locks for very ruth before that ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides

... the London Magazine, came "by Lord Brooke." Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, wrote Sidney's Life, published in 1652. After Sidney's death appeared many elegies upon him, eight of which were printed at the end of Spenser's Colin Clout's Come Home Again, in 1595. That which Lamb quotes is by Matthew Roydon, Stanzas 15 to 18 and 26 and 27. The poem beginning "Silence augmenteth grief" is attributed to Brooke, chiefly on Lamb's authority, in Ward's English Poets. This is ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... red breech-clout and spectacles, the lamplight shining on his bald head, sat in the midst of them, familiar by a score of years with their chants. Pae filled the pipe and the bowls and joined in the chorus, while the Paumotan boys, in a shadowy recess, sipped their rum and rolled ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... a regular cavalry uniform and on this parade some of them had their heavy overcoats on, others their large black hats, with all the brass accoutrements attached; some of them were minus pantaloons and only wore a breech-clout. Others wore regulation pantaloons but no shirts, and were bareheaded; others again had the seat of their pantaloons cut out, leaving only leggings; some of them wore brass spurs, though without boots or moccasins; but for all this they seemed to understand ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... not, good folks, but a true-born Englishman, and a good hater of all Frenchmen and Spaniards. So let me go forward peaceably. As for the clout I gave Master Peter, here is a groat to mend it. I have but a round dozen, or I would ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher



Words linked to "Clout" :   fisticuffs, advantage, parry, blow, poke, mark, lick, counterpunch, biff, target, pull, haymaker, Sunday punch, vantage, slug, sucker punch, counter, jab, clout nail, nail, strike, pugilism, knockout punch, boxing



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