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Clout   /klaʊt/   Listen
Clout

verb
(past & past part. clouted; pres. part. clouting)
1.
Strike hard, especially with the fist.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Clout" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... of these 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 hungry and ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... 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 ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... the dust before the door of a first-class carriage was a solemn brown man, in turban and clout, exhibiting performing parrots. It was Rajah's turn. He fired a cannon, turned somersaults through a little steel-hoop, opened a tiny chest, took out a four-anna piece, carried it to his master, and in exchange received some seed. Thereupon he waddled resentfully back to the iron-cage, opened the ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... 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. Then it was that he felt the consequence ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... you'd 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

... 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 ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... 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

... 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 of ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... kindly after my little Jane—had summoned us to the dining-room, I was presented to a small, quiet mouse of a woman whose head reached no higher than Dawson's heart. This was the redoubtable Emma! "Did she really clout you over the head and chuck you into the street?" I whispered. "She did, sir!" he replied, smiling. "She threw me ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... it: Let no man lift a blade or finger a clout— Is not this Gunnar, Gunnar, whom we have slain? Home, home, before the dawn shows ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... meanly, like 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... 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 ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... 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 his ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... the kirk and state Perhaps a clout may fail in't; But deil a foreign tinkler loan Shall ever ca' a nail in't. Our fathers' blade the kettle bought, And wha wad dare to spoil it; By heavens! the sacrilegious dog Shall fuel be to boil it! By heavens; the sacrilegious dog Shall fuel be ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... Rough clout upon his patient head, The stately camel round doth go, With gentle hesitating tread; And yoked, and blind with frontlets, made Of black Nile mud, the buffalo Plies with him ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... 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 Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... slayer 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 drooped ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... said anything," said Betto, hunting for the frying-pan, and beginning to prepare the ham and eggs for supper. "But where's that Robin?" she added; "a clout or two with the frying-pan would not hurt ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... differ but little from the Mindanayans, and others of these eastern islands. 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, like those of Mindanao; their lances ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... "Tut, tut, Colin Clout, much learning has made thee mad. A good old fishwives' ballad jingle is worth all your sapphics and trimeters, and 'riff-raff thurlery bouncing.' Hey? have I you there, old lad? Do you ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... we'll just tighten the rope so that he can't move, and I'll scratch his sweet face all over with the furze; and one of you chaps must have some gunpowder and lamp-black ready to rub it well into his face where it's been scratched. You must stuff a clout into his mouth if he offers to holler. We can do it all in two minutes by the help of the lantern. The light'll dazzle him so as he'll not be able to make any on us out; and then we must slip out of the window and be off afore ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... 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 ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... soldier happened to know Latin and other useless things, and now, as he fired at his man in the gray advancing mass—three hundred yards away—he uttered the pious vegetarian motto. He went on firing to the end, and at last Bill on his right had to clout him cheerfully over the head to make him stop, pointing out as he did so that the King's ammunition cost money and was not lightly to be wasted in drilling funny patterns into ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... the Swiss intimately, and who has written a book upon 'The Drink Traffic: The Example of Switzerland', tells me they certainly were not laughing at me; at any rate, I thought they were, and moved by a sudden anger I let go the reins, gave the horse a great clout, and set him off careering and galloping like a whirlwind down the road from which he had come, with the bit in his teeth and all the storms of heaven in his four feet. Instantly, as you may imagine, all the scoffers came tumbling ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... braided behind, and banged and plastered with clay in front so that it stood upright, and he dressed in blanket, breech clout, leggings and moccasins, and the lower joints of several of his fingers were cut off in accordance with the Indian custom of mutilating themselves at the burial of a friend. His first appearance to a new teacher who came the following spring caused her no little ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various

... the clout! you have hit the very white," said the damsel, suppressing a great inclination ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... clothes. A battered high hat surmounted his block of midnight hair, and a cutaway coat, built for a man much smaller around the chest, held his torso in bondage. As it was warm on the day he arrived, he had discarded his trousers—a breech-clout was plenty leg-gear, he thought. He bore a letter of recommendation from ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... 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, and the ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... him with a whole series of misdoings! But it was Maggie's way to keep unpleasant things from Edwin for a time, in order to save her important brother from being worried, and then in a moment of tension to fling them full in his face, like a wet clout. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... of clothes." He grinned again. "We'll want a breech clout, at least. I propose that we get the sheerest silk gauze we can find, and cut an eighth-inch square apiece to tie about our ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst

... Colin Clout, As I go about, And wondering as I walk, I hear the people talk: Men say for silver and gold Mitres are bought and sold: A straw for Goddys curse, What ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... or two appeared to have any article of dress, and that was a ragged breech-clout. The others were naked as the wild beasts around them, naked from head ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... soles, which greatly increased their durability, and were often ornamented over the instep or toes with a three-pronged figure, worked in porcupine quills or beads, the three prongs representing, it is said, the three divisions or tribes of the nation. The men wore a shirt, breech-clout, leggings which reached to the thighs, and moccasins. In winter both men and women wore a robe of tanned buffalo skin, and sometimes of beaver. In summer a lighter robe was worn, made of cowskin or buckskin, from which the ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... aspen leaf when he bound her hands and feet; and when he was about to bind over her sweet eyes a nasty old filthy clout wherein my maid had seen him carry fish but the day before, and which was still all over shining scales, I perceived it, and pulled off my silken neckerchief, begging him to use that instead, which he ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... policeman was passing through the train shed and he saw the blow delivered. He ran up and, to be on the safe side, put both men under technical arrest. The sweeper, who had been bowled over by the clout he had got, made a charge of unprovoked assault against the stranger; the latter expressed a blasphemous regret that he had not succeeded in cracking the sweeper's skull. He appeared to be in a highly nervous, highly irritable state. At any rate such was the interpretation which the patrolman put ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... Francis Meres (Palladis Tamia, 1598) mentions him in conjunction with many great names among "the most passionate, among us, to bewail and bemoan the perplexities of love." Spenser, in "Colin Clout's come home again," calls him with a spice of raillery "old Palaemon" who "sung so long until quite hoarse he grew." His writings, with the exception of his contributions to the Mirror for Magistrates, are chiefly autobiographical ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... their excellence, But meeting Mopsa in my way, And looking on her face of clay, Been healed, and cured, and made as sound, As though I ne'er had had a wound? And when in tables of my heart, Love wrought such things as bred my smart, Mopsa would come, with face of clout, And in an instant wipe them out. And when their faces made me sick, Mopsa would come, with face of brick, A little heated in the fire, And break the neck of my desire. Now from their face I turn mine eyes, But (cruel panthers!) they surprise Me ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... Chauffeur gloated, while she performed that dreadful, menial task. 'A trifle balky at times, Professor, a trifle balky; but a clout alongside the jaw makes her as meek and gentle ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London

... 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 ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the Rocket ran out By jumping the railings and kicking a clout Of rotten white woodwork to startle the trout. When Charles cleared the water, the grass stretcht before And the glory of going ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield

... you all the time," she gasped. "I thought you must be a humbug all along, from the conceited way you talked. Pretty washerwoman you are! Never washed so much as a dish-clout ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... waving his coonskin cap, and between his long deerskin leggins and breech clout the flesh of his slim legs showed bare, almost as bronze-dark ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... made of the 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 their skinnes.] Some ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... a clout from the Boer — to plaster anew with dirt? An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt? We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share. What is the Flag of England? Winds of the ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... 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, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... poor man called Madari. Girdhari wanted to have the cane cut down as near as he could to the ground, while the boy, to save himself the trouble of stooping, would persist in cutting it a good deal too high up. After admonishing him several times, the shopkeeper gave him a smart clout on the head. The boy, to prevent a repetition, called out, "Murder! Girdhari has killed me—Girdhari has killed me!" His old father, who was at work carrying away the cane at a little distance out of sight, ran off to the village watchman, and, in his anger, told him that ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... but as we were not qualified by years of arduously won sanctity to stand stark naked in the presence he conceded us a clout apiece torn from a filthy length of calico that some one had tossed in a corner. And he tore another piece of filthy red cotton cloth in halves, and divided it between us to twist around our heads. King laughed ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... 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. Have ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... mistrysted wi' bogles in the hame-coming, an' then to hae to flyte wi' a wheen women that hae been doing naething a' the live-lang day, but whirling a bit stick, wi' a thread trailing at it, or boring at a clout." ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... sweeping 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

... of the clout," the bowman said gravely. "By my hilt! I have seen a stronger fortalice carried in a summer evening. I remember such a one in Picardy, with a name as long as a Gascon's pedigree. It was when I served under Sir Robert Knolles, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... be sendin' me to choppin' poles wid a head on me like a lobster-pot?" he whispered. "Sure, skipper, me poor head feels that desperate bad, what wid the liquor an' the clout ye give me, I couldn't heave it up from the pillow if Saint Peter himself give ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... the squalidness of his furniture, the gallant White Plume presented some such whimsical incongruity as we see in the gala equipments of an Indian chief on a treaty-making embassy at Washington, who has been generously decked out in cocked hat and military coat, in contrast to his breech-clout and leathern legging; being grand officer at top, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... have had the whole piece interrupted, and a crowded audience of at least twenty-five pounds kept waiting, because the actors had hid away the breeches of Rosalind, and have known Hamlet stalk solemnly on to deliver his soliloquy, with a dish-clout pinned to his skirts. Such are the baleful consequences of a manager's getting ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... but nevertheless receives much attention. The poorest of the men wear clouts of banana leaf, and the women, when in danger of capture, don skirts of bark; but on most occasions we find the man wearing a colored cotton clout, above which is a bright belt of the same material, while for ceremonies he may add a short coat or jacket. A headband, sometimes of gold, keeps his long hair in place, and for very special events he may adorn each hair with a golden bead (pp. ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... Abiram. Not the most despised of the habits or the feeblest of the three-year-olds had been left behind to give a hint of their course; but the hoof-marks showed black on a marshy down-grade of grass, and with an angry clout of her crop on Pilot's unaccustomed ribs, she set off again. A narrow road cut across the hills at the end of the field. The latter was divided from it by a low, thin wall of sharp slaty stones, and on the ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... 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 long after the party fell into a more grieuous infirmity, ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts

... 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 their like in the ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie

... 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 ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... clout, She is quite shut out! She might call and shout, But no one about Would ever call back, "Who's there?" There is never a hut, Not a door to shut, Not a footpath or rut, Long road or short cut, ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald

... country was more tropical than any through which we had passed. Clumps of palm trees were to be seen here and there. Pools of standing water, where horses and cattle stood cooling themselves, were frequent. The people whom we met wore little clothing. Men frequently had nothing but the breech-clout and hat. Women wore a skirt, but no upper garment. Children up to ten and twelve years of age ran naked. Reaching San Mateo at twelve o'clock, we found the village excited at our non-appearance. Our carretero had arrived long before with our luggage. He had ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... 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

... or gently restrained moods of human creatures. It gives also our idiosyncrasies. It is gossip in extremis. It is apt to chronicle our petty little skirmishes, rather than our feuds. In it Colin Clout and his comrades return. ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay

... 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

... is a piece of a Puritan—it won't deny—but I'll uphold him a 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 ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... him. "You to pity her! You to plead her beauty to me, who took it out of the mud where you had flung her, mauled by you and left to lie like a bloody clout!" ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... 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 ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... earl might send a fast boat after us. Therefore, when I come out I will turn off and go, by unfrequented streets and lanes, in the opposite direction. In that way you will be better able to see if I am followed, and may find some quiet place, where you can give a man a clout on the head that will rid ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... cloak it was a very good cloak, It hath been always true to the wear, But now it is not worth a groat; I have had it four and forty year: Sometime it was of cloth in grain, 'Tis now but a sigh-clout, as you may see, It will neither hold out wind nor rain; And I'll have ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various

... 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 understand half what ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... eldest zonne, My mother eke doth love me well, For ich can bravely clout my shoone, And ich full well can ring a bell. Chorus. For he can bravely clout his shoone, And he full well can ring ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... as he began to speak, and so solved the mystery. Her first thought was to snatch the kettle out of the blaze, but remembering who had put it there, she dared not. She sidled toward the hearth instead, and saying craftily, "Ay, here it is; it's a clout among the peats," softly laid the kettle on the earthen floor. It was still red with sparks, however, when the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... 'ead, 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 that made his ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs

... to her very particularly about General Mitchener. (To Mitchener.) Dont you be afeard: I know youre sane enough when youre not talkin about the Germans. (Into the telephone.) Is that you, Eliza? (She listens for the answer.) Dye remember me givin you a clout on the side of the head for tellin me that if I only knew how to play me cards I could marry any general on the staff instead o disgracin you be bein a charwoman? (She listens for the answer.) Well, I can ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw

... don't deserve a kindness. I've been drying them for you, and now you complain about the holes—and you swear, too! Right in front of me! If I hadn't been a Christian—which you ain't, you young ruffian—I would give you a clout on the head.... Go away!" Men in couples or threes stood pensive or moved silently along the bulwarks in the waist. The first busy day of a homeward passage was sinking into the dull peace of resumed routine. Aft, on the high poop, Mr. Baker walked shuffling and grunted to himself in the ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... his arm too, which is more, belike, than thou bargainedst for," and, before the astonished captain could grasp his sword, he had let the beggar's cloak fall to the ground, and, lifting his stout cudgel, he had given him such a clout over the head, that his skull cracked like a nut, and he fell dead ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... 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 hasten with succour, Yields to you Spain, ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... church, and politics. His Daphnaida was also published about the same time. On his return to Ireland he gave a charming picture of life at Kilcolman Castle, with an account of his visit to the court, in Colin Clout's Come Home Again. The story of the long and desperate courtship of his second love, Elizabeth, whom he wedded in 1594, is told in the Amoretti, a sonnet sequence full of passion and tenderness. His rapturous wedding ode, the Epithalamion, ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... 'Tonio sought not, as does 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 his train, and, escorted by Bright, turned squarely as ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... next place, of whatsoever part you heard the story, the particulars were always the same, especially that of laying a wet double clout[143] on a dying man's face, and that of smothering a young gentlewoman: so that it was apparent, at least to my judgment, that there was more of tale than of truth ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe

... a monologue, Spenser, under the disguise of Colin Clout, laments the ill-success of his love for Rosalind, who meets his advances with scorn. He also alludes to his friendship with Harvey, who is introduced throughout under the name of Hobbinol. The 'February' is a disputation between youth and age in the persons of Cuddie and ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... 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 Rumming! How for poor Philip Sparrow Was murdered at Carow, How our hearts he does harrow ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves

... Hubert!" shouted the populace, more interested in a known person than in a stranger. "In the clout!—in the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... 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

... 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 ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... heart turns to water at the nude recollection of such an unparalleled predicament, for the now unrestrained bicycle vires acquirit eundo, and in seven-league boots! While I, wet as a clout with anxiety and perspiration, did grasp the handles like the horns of a dilemma, calling out in agonised accents to the bystanders,—"Help! I am running away with myself! Half a rupee for ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... 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 of us to snatch us away if it was necessary to fire ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... no hesitation then on Hawkeye's part. Toddles, equipped for another excursion through the train with a stack of magazines and books that almost hid him, received a sudden and vicious clout on the side of ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... 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 fastened to the black coarse strands ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... questions, created some sensation. Another work, The Evolution of the Idea of God, propounding a theory of religion on heterodox lines, has the disadvantage of endeavouring to explain everything by one theory. His scientific works also included Colour Sense, Evolutionist at Large, Colin Clout's Calendar, and the Story of the Plants, and among his novels may be added Babylon, In all Shades, Philistia (1884), The Devil's Die, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... 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 ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... was naked save for his turban, a breech-clout, his boot-moccasins, and the usual belt of cartridges. Even for an Apache he was unusually ugly; and now as he saw the eyes of the white man meeting his, he grinned. It was such a grin as an ugly dog gives before biting. At ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... gleam of a quarter, went out. In five minutes he returned with old Lizzie,—she smelling strong of spirits and wearing several jackets which she had put on one over the other, and a number of skirts, long and short, which made her resemble an animated dish-clout. She had, of course, to borrow her equipment from Mrs. Foley, and toiled up the long flights, dragging mop and pail and broom. She told Hedger to be of good cheer, for he had got the right woman for the job, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... not the coat that looks so dun, His hide emits a foulness out; Not one jot better looks the sun Seen from behind a dirty clout. So t—ds within a glass enclose, The glass will seem as brown ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... cloak it was a very good cloak, It hath been always true to the wear; But now it is not worth a groat: I have had it four and forty year'. Sometime it was of cloth in grain: 'Tis now but a sigh clout, as you may see: It will neither hold out wind nor rain; And I'll have a new ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... whose chief dress was a breach clout and deerskin leggings, formidable in their war-paint and war plumes, with scalping-knives and tomahawks, were only partially held in hand by Chief Brant, conspicuous by his height, his wampum fillet and eagle plumes, and his King George's medal on ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... him in 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 that'll ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... miseries of his poetical life, are alluded to by Spenser. He is old Palemon in "Colin Clout's come Home again." Spenser is supposed to describe this laborious writer for half a century, whose melancholy pipe, in his old age, may make ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... thee 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

... dozen or more dogs. He was losing speed, but likewise his pursuers were dropping off steadily. Only the sturdy Eskimo dog held to his even gait, and behind him in the frail travois leaned forward the little Matohinshda, nude save a breech clout, his left hand holding fast the convenient tail of his dog, the right grasping firmly one of the poles of the travois. His black eyes were bulging almost out of their sockets; his long hair flowed out behind like a ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... thought it?" he mused. "That Mandy Haley? She's a terror. And them eyes! Oh, git on, Deck, what you monkeyin' about? Wonder if she's gone on that young feller? I guess she is all right! Say, wasn't that a clout he handed Perkins. And didn't she give me one. But them eyes! Mandy Haley! By the jumpin' Jeremiah! And the way she looks at a feller! Here, Deck, what you foolin' about? Gwan now, or ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... miner is still hanging around this cabin?" asked Sandy. "Do you think he is the man who gave Bert the clout on the head? If you do think so, we'd ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman

... in the palace, On a white and downy bed; And some are in the garret, With a clout beneath their head; And some are on the cold, hard earth, Whose mothers have ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... Cap, nor Turban, nor any thing to keep off the Sun. The Men for the biggest part have only a small Clout to cover their Nakedness; some of them have Jackets made of Plantain-leaves, which were as rough as any Bear's-skin: I never saw such rugged Things. The Women have a short Petticoat made of Cotton, which comes a little below their Knees. It is a thick sort ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... wrestlers, as their Greek prototypes, first invoked the favor of the gods, and offered sacrifices when victorious. The palestra was on a lawn by the sea, and in formal contests district champions met those of other districts, and islands competed for supremacy with other islands. The maona wore a breech-clout and a coat of cocoanut oil freshly laid on, but not sand, as in the Olympiads. When one was thrown, the victor's friends shouted in triumph and sang and danced about him to the music of tom-toms, while the backers of the loser met the demonstrations with ridicule. This was much like the organized ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... "and you ought to have a look at the den where your poor old daddy spends his time grinding dress material for his family from the faces of the poor. I've got some funny clerks, too: one of them is a curiosity." Here, growing suddenly furious, he gave an egg a clout. ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... went 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 every side, All beslomered in fen[11] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... 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 ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... close of August, 1915, Nasiriyeh had been made habitable by the British engineers and a large part of the force departed for Amara on steamers and barges, most of the soldiers wearing only a waist-clout and still suffering from the intense heat, as they crouched under the grass-mat shelters that had been provided. The garrison left in the town to keep the Arabs in order suffered from swarms of flies, heat, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... below this powder rock I could look back upon the camp en enfilade, as an artilleryman would say. Nearest at hand was the half-moon of Indian lodges with the hollow of the crescent facing the stream, and a caldron fire burning in the midst. Around the fire a ring of warriors naked to the breech-clout kept time in a slow shuffling dance to a monotonous chanting; and for onlookers there was an outer ring of squatting figures—the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... Will o' the Wallhead bobbed her solid and black curly head, with a clout like a jelly on the poll of it, to the owner of their land, and a lady of high birth; but she vouchsafed no courtesy, neither did Mistress Yordas expect one. But the active and self-contained woman set a chair in the low dark room, which was their ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... find no clean water in their houses, we wash our children in their pottage, milk, or beer, or whate'er we find: for the sluts that leave not such things fitting, we wash their faces and hands with a gilded child's clout, or else carry them to some river, and duck them over head and ears. We often use to dwell in some great hill, and from thence we do lend money to any poor man or woman that hath need; but if they bring it not again at the day appointed, we do not only punish them ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... inspected with their richly attired and splendidly adorned consorts. There they stood and laughed at the Tsarevich Ivan and said: "Why, brother! Why hast thou come hither without thy wife? Why, thou mightest have brought her with thee in a kitchen clout. And where didst thou pick up such a beauty? I suppose thou didst search through all the ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... 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, merry ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... used to lie awake at night thinking of them and longing to be loved and embraced by them. A certain bareback rider, a sort of jockey, used especially to please me on account of his handsome legs, which were clothed in fleshlings up to his waist, leaving his beautiful loins uncovered by a breech-clout. There was nothing consciously sensual about these reveries, because at the time I had no sensual feelings or knowledge. Curiously enough, the women-actors repelled me then (as they do to this day) quite as strongly as I was ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... Randulf, at the club, "when so old a man gets so young a wife, it is all up with him"; and saying this he made a movement, as if wringing a clout ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... 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 they wear their hair in long braids hanging down their backs like the queue ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... tablecloth, and over went the whole display with a bang—meat-dish broken, and meat on the dusty floor; while the cats and fowls, ever on the alert for such occurrences, made the most of their opportunities. Mrs M'Swat returned carrying the tea, which was spilling by the way. She gave those boys each a clout on the head which dispersed them roaring like the proverbial town bull, and alarmed me for the safety of their ear-drums. I wondered if their mother was aware of their having ear-drums. She grabbed the meat, and wiping it on her greasy apron, carried it around in her hand ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... rage, of tempest, she is frozen wiz a repose. Do 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 ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... The native saw it, and looked admiringly at the beautiful handle. He turned it around and viewed it from every side, and then deftly drew a strand of material from his clout and, winding it around the knife, threw the loop of the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... the sun, undertook to deprive the people of it, because of some slight, Kana waded across the sea and forced that king to behave himself instanter; then, having seen the light properly placed in the sky, he spread his breech-clout over a few acres of volcano to dry, and took a nap on a mile or so of lava bed. This deity had the power of compressing himself into a small space, and likewise of pulling himself out to any desired length, like an accordion, so that there was not water in the eight seas ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner



Words linked to "Clout" :   jab, KO punch, vantage, mark, nail, advantage, Sunday punch, fisticuffs, rabbit punch, blow, counterpunch, strike, hook, target, boxing, haymaker, knockout punch, parry, pugilism, sucker punch, counter



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