clinker-built

See also: clinkerbuilt

English
WOTD – 20 May 2021

Etymology
Clinker-built iron plating on the lower hull of the S.S. Great Britain, a passenger steamship built in 1845.
The clinker-built prow of the Oseberg Ship, a Viking ship discovered in a burial mound in Norway.[n 1]
An illustration of cross-sections through the hulls of boats to compare the clinker and carvel styles of boat-building.

From clinker +‎ built. Clinker is derived from clink (“to clench or fasten with nails or rivets”) + -er (suffix attached to verbs forming agent nouns indicating persons or things that do actions indicated by the verbs),[1] and clink is a northern English variant of clench (“to secure (something) with bolts, nails, etc.; (specifically) to bend the point of a nail after it has been hammered through something so that the nail cannot be removed; to clinch”),[2] from Middle English clinken, clenchen (“to fasten, specifically with nails or rivets; to enclose; to lock up; to clench (the fingers)”) [and other forms],[3] from Old English clenċan (“to clinch, hold fast”), a variant of clenġan (“to adhere; to remain”), from Proto-Germanic *klangijaną (“to make cling or stick”), the causative of *klinganą (“to adhere to, cling to”), from Proto-Indo-European *gleh₁y- (“to glue, stick; to smear”).[4]

Pronunciation

Adjective

clinker-built (not comparable)

  1. (nautical) Of a boat or ship: having the hull constructed using planks or plates laid so that each plank overlaps the edge of the plank or plate below it, and in the case of plates, behind it; the planks were traditionally secured by nails which had been clenched (or clinched), that is, after being hammered through the planks the points of the nails were bent to make them unremovable.
    Synonyms: clench-built, clinch-built, clincher-built, lapstrake
    • 1850, John J[eremiah] Bigsby, “Excursion the Seventh. Part I. Lakes Ontario and Simcoe, etc.”, in The Shoe and Canoe or Pictures of Travel in the Canadas. […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, page 36:
      The British portion of the expedition were ordered to leave Kingston, in Canada West, as early in the year as possible, in a beautiful clinker-built boat for Toronto.
    • 1882, J. G. Bertram, “The National Herring Harvest”, in Companion to the Almanac; or, Year-book of General Information for 1882, London: […] [Harrison and Sons] for the Company of Stationers, and sold by J. Greenhill, […], →OCLC, part I, page 53:
      The herring fishery in Scotland (undoubtedly the greatest fishery of the kind) is carried on from the shore. The larger number of the boats in use for many years past are open clinker-built boats, costing, with their suite of nets, about 200l.
    • 1890 June 14 (indicated as 1891), G[eorge] A[lfred] Henty, “A Fishing Village”, in A Chapter of Adventures: Or, Through the Bombardment of Alexandria, London, Glasgow: Blackie & Son, →OCLC, page 21:
      Ten years ago all the bawleys were clinker-built—that is, with the streaks overlapping each other, as in boats; but the new bawleys are now all carvel-built, the planks being placed edge to edge, so as to give a smooth surface, as in yachts and large vessels.
    • 1912 January 30, Arthur C. Clement (witness), “Deposition of Arthur C. Clement”, in The People of the State of Illinois on the Relation of Charles S[amuel] Deneen, Governor, and William H. Stead, Attorney General, Plaintiffs in Error, vs. The Economy Light and Power Company. […] Supreme Court of the United States. October Term, 1913. (No. 179; 23,036), volume I (Transcript of Record), [Washington, D.C.]: [Judd & Detweiler], →OCLC, page 261:
      Q. Yes. When you refer to a clinker built boat, just describe that style of boat. That refers to one with a bow at each end and a sharp keel? / A. No, this boat that I had there in 1879 was a square stern boat, sharp bow of course. A clinker built is made by boards lapping over each other. It is like set-work you know.
    • 1921, John Buchan, “Hightown under Sunfell”, in The Path of the King, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC, page 10:
      But best he loved to go up the firth in the boat which Leif had made him—a finished, clinker-built little model of a war galley, christened the Joy-maker—and catch the big sea fish.
    • 1979, Patrick O’Brian, chapter 1, in The Fortune of War, paperback edition, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, published 2003, →ISBN, page 3:
      The Leopard in fact possessed no barge: nothing more than a little clinker-built jolly-boat, patched and pieced until scarcely an original plank was to be seen.
    • 2004, Hal Roth, “The Corpus Itself”, in How to Sail Around the World: Advice and Ideas for Voyaging under Sail, Camden, Me., New York, N.Y.: International Marine/McGraw-Hill, →ISBN, page 17:
      Varnished clinker planking is common in Scandinavia. The original Folkboat was clinker-built.
    • 2008, Stephen Fry, “Introduction”, in Stephen Fry in America, London: Harper, HarperCollinsPublishers, published 2009, →ISBN, page 9:
      As the taxi and I travelled around America I pictured myself […] in a traditional clapboard, clinker-built home with a view over Chesapeake Bay, Maryland.
      Applied to a building.
    • 2015, Rick Searle, “A King in a Glass Castle”, in The Man Who Saved Smithy: Fighter Pilot, Pioneer Aviator, Hero: The Life of Sir Gordon Taylor GC, MC, Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, →ISBN, page 11:
      By this time, Wearie Willie had been replaced by Query, a clinker-built 16-footer that Patrick Senior had commissioned especially for his youngest son from Goddard's of Palm Beach.

Alternative forms

Translations

See also

Notes
  1. From the collection of the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway.

References
  1. “clinker-built, adj.” under “clinker, n.3”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2021.
  2. “clinker-built, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. “clenchen, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  4. Compare “clench, v.1”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020; “clench, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading
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