Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To close tightly.
- transitive verb To grasp or grip tightly.
- transitive verb To clinch (a bolt, for example).
- noun A tight grip or grasp.
- noun Something, such as a mechanical device, that clenches or holds fast.
from The Century Dictionary.
- . To nail or fasten.
- To secure or fasten, as a nail, staple, or other metallic fastening, by beating down the point after it has been driven through something; rivet.
- To bring together and set firmly, as the teeth; double up tightly, as the hands.
- To grasp or seize firmly or convulsively; gripe.
- Figuratively, to fix or secure by a finishing touch or blow; confirm, as an argument or an action, in some unanswerable or irresistible way; establish firmly.
- Nautical, to calk slightly with oakum, in anticipation of foul weather.
- To gripe.
- To seize or gripe another, or one another, with a firm grasp or hold, as in wrestling: as, the men clenched.
- To pun.
- noun A catch; a grip; a persistent clutch.
- noun That which holds fast or clenches; a clencher (or clincher); a holdfast.
- noun Nautical, a mode of fastening large ropes, consisting of a half-hitch with the end stopped back to its part by seizings. The outer end of a hawser is bent by a clench to the ring of the anchor.
- noun A pun or play on words.
- noun A mode of securing a nail, staple, or the like, by turning over the point and hammering back into the wood the portion bent over.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- See
clinch .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
Tight grip . - noun engineering A seal that is applied to formed thin-wall
bushings . - verb To
squeeze ; togrip or hold tightly.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb hold in a tight grasp
- noun a small slip noose made with seizing
- noun the act of grasping
- verb squeeze together tightly
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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By 9: 00 p.m., six corrections officers had strapped him down and you could see Muhammad kind of clench his fist a few times.
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Yet DOE's culture has been created around this idea that if you ever fail, you get your butt dragged up to Congress and shouted at, and that just causes everybody to kind of clench up.
Here Comes the Cash 2009
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"I kind of clench my teeth every time Paterson says people will leave," said Edmund J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a conservative-leaning research group that has advocated for sharp cuts in spending to balance New York's budget.
Buffalo Pundit 2009
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It's really rare that I see something and it makes me clench my buttcheeks so tight that I pull a butt muscle.
Archive 2009-02-22 Tyler 2009
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The inner fists clench, and the grin begins to grimace.
Wale Oyejide: The Masquerade Is Over Wale Oyejide 2011
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- Kimberly 3. You clench your nether regions just before a sneeze so you don't pee.
The Stir: Twenty-Five Ways You Know You're Such a Mother The Stir 2012
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It wasn't just the set of those jaws, which looked clenched in the way that jaws clench when someone is always used to getting their own way.
Christina Patterson: Why Wrecked Economies Need More Parental Leave Christina Patterson 2011
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I wanted not to feel the clench in my guts every time the bills came due.
2008, What I Wanted JP Reese 2011
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It wasn't just the set of those jaws, which looked clenched in the way that jaws clench when someone is always used to getting their own way.
Christina Patterson: Why Wrecked Economies Need More Parental Leave Christina Patterson 2011
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The inner fists clench, and the grin begins to grimace.
Wale Oyejide: The Masquerade Is Over Wale Oyejide 2011
chained_bear commented on the word clench
"'He that would make a pun would pick a pocket,' said Stephen, 'and that miserable quibble is not even a pun, but a vile clench.'"
--Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World, 157
February 20, 2008