clangour

English

WOTD – 12 January 2012

Alternative forms

• clangor (US, Canada)

Etymology

Etymology tree

Latin clangō

Proto-Indo-European *-os

Proto-Indo-European *-s

Proto-Indo-European *-ōs

Proto-Italic *-ōs

Latin -or

Latin clangorbor.

English clangour

Borrowed from Latin clangor.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈklæŋ(ɡ)ə/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈklæŋ(ɡ)ɚ/
• Rhymes: -æŋə(ɹ), -æŋɡə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: clan‧gour

Noun

clangour (countable and uncountable, plural clangours)

1. (UK, Canada) A loud, repeating clanging sound; a loud racket; a din.
   • [1611?], Homer, “Book III”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], new edition, volume I, London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, →OCLC, page 80:

     When every least commander’s will, best soldiers had obey’d, / And both the hosts were rang’d for fight, the Trojans would have fray’d / The Greeks with noises; crying out, in coming rudely on / At all parts, like the cranes that fill with harsh confusion / Of brutish clangour all the air; […]

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 1920, D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love, Chapter XXIV: Death and Love,

     And always, as the dark, inchoate eyes turned to him, there passed through Gerald's bowels a burning stroke of revolt, that seemed to resound through his whole being, threatening to break his mind with its clangour, and making him mad.

   • 1957 May, Neil Caplan, “Railways in English Fiction”, in Railway Magazine, page 349:

     H. G. Wells' stark short story "The Cone" tells of a man's macabre revenge worked out in the clangour of a great steel works and railway lines and sidings.

Derived terms

• clangorous
• clangorously

Translations

a loud, repeating clanging sound; a loud racket; a din

• Dutch: geschal (nl), galmen (nl)
• Finnish: kalina (fi), kolina (fi)
• German: Schall (de) m, Getöse (de) n
• Italian: clangore (it) m
• Russian: бряца́ние (ru) n (brjacánije), лязг (ru) m (ljazg)
• Spanish: estruendo (es)

Verb

clangour (third-person singular simple present clangours, present participle clangouring, simple past and past participle clangoured)

1. (UK, Canada) To make a clanging sound.
   • 1924, Jim Tully, Beggars of Life: A Hobo Autobiography, page 67:

     It clangoured through the house like a bell in a tomb.

Translations

to make a clanging sound

• Finnish: kajahdella (fi)
• Russian: бряцать (ru) n (brjacatʹ), лязгать (ru) n (ljazgatʹ), лязгнуть (ru) (ljazgnutʹ)