Clog Meaning
/klɒɡ/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA type of shoe with an inflexible, often wooden sole sometimes with an open heel.
nounA blockage.
Sentence Examples
It's a simple sink clog.
I don't want my bathtub to clog, so I need to buy a strainer.
How long this clog has been in the kitchen sink?
Vocabulary Challenge
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CEFR Practice Quiz
A hair ____ blocked the shower drain and stopped the water flow.
Word Origin & History
Unknown; perhaps from Middle English clog (“weight attached to the leg of an animal to impede movement”). Perhaps of North Germanic origin and derived from Proto-Germanic *klumpô (“lump, mass, clasp”); compare Old Norse klugu, klogo (“knotty tree log”), Dutch klomp.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"[…] as to the poor—just look at them when they come crowding about the church-doors on the occasion of a marriage or a funeral, clattering in clogs; […]"
— 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Mr. Donne’s Exodus”, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 117:
"She stomped up the stairs. Her clogs slammed against the pine boards of the staircase and shook the house."
— 2002, Alice Sebold, chapter 5, in The Lovely Bones, Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, page 92:
"I let him in this morning. He lost one of his clogs."
— 1987, Bruce Robinson, Withnail and I, spoken by Withnail:
"Yet as a Dog committed close / For some offence, by chance breaks loose, / And quits his Clog; but all in vain, / He still draws after him his Chain."
— 1663 (indicated as 1664), [Samuel Butler], “The Second Part of Hudibras. Canto III.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:
"A clog of lead was round my feet / A band of pain across my brow;"
— 1855, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Letters”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, page 115:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
A hair ____ blocked the shower drain and stopped the water flow.