clatch

English

Etymology

Compare Scots clatch (“a slap, the noise caused by the collision of soft bodies”); probably of imitative origin.

Noun

clatch (plural clatches)

1. (UK, Scotland, dialect) A soft or sloppy lump or mass.

   to throw a clatch of mud

2. (UK, Scotland, dialect) Anything put together or made in a careless or slipshod way.
3. (UK, Scotland, dialect, by extension) A sluttish or slipshod woman.
4. (UK, Scotland, dialect, historical) A kind of gig.

Derived terms

• clatchy

Verb

clatch (third-person singular simple present clatches, present participle clatching, simple past and past participle clatched)

1. (UK, Scotland, dialect, transitive, intransitive) To daub or smear, as with lime; to make or finish in a slipshod way.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “clatch”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)