clough

From Middle English clough, clow, cloȝ, from Old English *clōh, from Proto-Germanic *klanhaz, *klanhō (“cleft, sluice, abyss”), of uncertain origin, possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to form into a ball”).[1]

Cognate with Scots cleuch (“gorge; ravine”), Old High German klāh (in placenames), Old High German klingo, klinga (“brook, cataract, gulf, rapids”). Perhaps conflated or influenced by Old Norse klofi (“a cleft or rift in a hill, ravine”); compare Dutch kloof (“a slit, crevice, chink”). See also cling, clove.

• cleugh, cleuch (Scotland)
• cleugh (Northumbria, Cumbria)

• IPA^(key): /klʌf/, /klaʊ/

• Audio of /klaʊ/ (Canadian English)

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• Audio of /klʌf/ (Canadian English)

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• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ʌf, -aʊ

clough (plural cloughs)

1. (Northern England, US) A narrow valley; a cleft in a hillside; a ravine, glen, or gorge.
   • 1813, James Hogg, The Queen's Wake:

     The day-sky glimmered on the dew […]
     And lurked in heath and braken clough

   • 1875, Edward Hull, John Roche Dakyns, Richard Hill Tiddeman, The Geology of the Burnley Coal-field and of the Country Around Clitheroe, Blackburn, Preston, Chorley, Haslingden, and Todmorden, page 104:

     These beds form no good escarpments southward of the clough; but they appear to be higher than the corresponding beds on the opposite side; there would thus seem to be a fault in the valley downthrowing on the west, but it is quite hidden by débris.

   • 1902, Yorkshire Dialect Society, Transactions - Volumes 1-4, page 20:

     The features of a clough fall well in with a Teutonic idea that Thor, their thunder-god, had smitten these places when in fits of fury and made the deep gashes in the hillsides.

   • 2014, Malc Cowle, Trespassers! A Tribute to Fighters for the Freedom to Roam, page 189:

     Now we've sorted that out, the easiest way is up the clough and along the bridleway.

2. A sluice used in returning water to a channel after depositing its sediment on the flooded land.
   • 1801, William Chapman, Sundry Papers and Reports, page 34:

     I have, accordingly, estimated the depth of drain at the lower end to be 1 foot 6 inches deeper than the fill of the clough, and given it a progressive rise to suit with 5 feet depth below the surface at its head.

   • 1808, William Humphrey Marshall, A review of the reports to the Board of agriculture - Volume 1, page 394:

     When the spring tide begins to ebb, the flood gate is opened to admit the tide, the clough having been previously shut by the weight of water brouht up the river by the flow of the tide. As the tide ebbs down the river, the weight or pressure of water being taken from the outside of the clough next the river, the tide water that has been previously admitted by the flood gate opens the clough again, and discharges itself slowly but completely through it.

   • 1830, Sir David Brewster, The Edinburgh Encyclopædia - Volume 1, page 346:

     For a view of a clough, see Mr. Young's Northern Tour, Vol. I. Plate III. p. 212. the floodgates and sluices for letting in the water are like the common sluices and gates in canals for raising the water to assist the passage of boats; sometimes also the flood-gates or sluices are placed above the clough perpendicularly.

   • 1896, “Creyke v. Corporation of the Level of Hatfield Chase”, in The Times Law Reports, volume 12, page 385:

     These entries are, in my opinion, inconsistent with the view that the plaintiff's predecessors were the owners of the clough or were entitled to use it as of right subject only ( if at all ) to mere regulations as to user by the commissioners, or with any view except that the plaintiff's predecessors is using the clough did so under a revocable licence.

   • 1901, Sir Edward Boyle, Thomas Waghorn, The Law Relating to Traffic on Railways and Canals, page 431:

     The person navigating any vessel […] Shall, on entering double locks, or a lock having a side pond, draw the middle clough, sluice, or paddle, to bring the water in the locks or lock and side pond to the same level, and shall not draw the upper or lower cloughs, sluices or paddles, as the case may be, until the middle clough, sluice, or paddle is again lowered.

3. (dialectal) The cleft or fork of a tree; crotch.
   • 1865 July, George Smith, William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Poetry of Provincialisms”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume 12, page 39:

     The same praise should not be refused to the North-countryman who talks of "the clough" of the tree, literally the valley, the cleft, where the branches part.

4. (dialectal) A wood; weald.

• Howden Clough

clough (plural cloughs)

1. (historical) Alternative form of cloff (“allowance of two pounds in every three hundredweight”)
   • 1738, William Markham, A General Introduction to Trade and Business, page 184:

     Tare, Trett, and Clough, are to be deducted out of the Gross Weight; and the remainder is the Neat Weight of such Goods; for which the trader pays the Merchant who sells them, at so much per Hundred, Pound, &c. according to Agreement.

   • 1747, “Directions for Mercantile Business”, in The Universal Library of Trade and Commerce, page 27:

     4. Clough, which is an Allowance in every Draught of the Scale, that the Weight may hold out in case they are re-weigh'd.
     Tare, Tret, and Clough, are to be deducted out of the Gross Weight, and the remainder is the neat Weight of the Goods.

   • 1787, Joseph Randall, The New Book of Knowledge, page 59:

     This Clough is an Allowance on some Sort of Goods for the Turn of the Scale, and when you have deducted the Tret, as in the last Question, that Remainder, 46 C. 3 qrs. 6 lbs. must still be called Suttle, because you have the Clough yet to be deducted from it.

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “clough”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• “clough”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• cleu, clew, cloghe, cloȝ, clou, clouȝ, clow, clowgh

From Old English *clōh, from Proto-West Germanic *klą̄h, from Proto-Germanic *klanhaz, *klanhō, possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to form into a ball”).[1]

• IPA^(key): /kluːx/

clough (plural cloughes)

1. A narrow valley; a ravine.
2. A cliff; a precipice.

• English: clough
• Geordie English: cleugh
• Scots: cleuch

• “clǒugh, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.