Obs. exc. dial. [Clunch adj. and sb. are immediately connected: earlier quotations have actually been found for the sb., but its various senses appear to arise more naturally from that of the adj. The LG. klunt, Du. klont ‘lump, clod, heavy and awkward mass, clown,’ etc., which is explained etymologically as a nasalized derivative of the root which gave cleat, clot, clout (OTeut. *klunt-, from klut-), must app. have formerly been used in the same sense in Eng. (where it still lingers dialectally in restricted use: see below), as is evidenced by numerous derivatives, CLUNTER, etc. An adj. *cluntisc, cluntish ‘of the nature of a lump, lumpy, lumpish, loutish’ (cf. Cheshire Gloss. 1866, cluntish rough-spoken, uncivil), may possibly have been contracted to clunch (cf. Frencisc, French, Scottish, Scotch). The close phonetic relation of clunch and clumse, together with overlapping of meanings seems to have resulted in the frequent treatment of the two as synonymous.]

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  1.  Lumpy, lumpish; heavy and stiff, or close, as clay or pudding; thickset, ‘chunky,’ in figure.

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1776.  C. Anstey, Election Ball (ed. 3), 31.

        In Pudding there’s something so clumsy and clunch,
And something so filthy, so stinking in Punch.

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1787.  Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, 13 July. I found him [Dr. Beattie] pleasant … with a round thick clunch figure, that promises nothing either of his works or his discourse. Ibid. (1788), 20 Oct. She is fat, and clunch, and heavy, and ugly.

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  2.  dial. (See quot.) Cf. CLUMSE, CLUMSED 4.

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1877.  N. W. Lincolnsh. Gloss., Clunch: 1. Close, hot, cloudy (of the weather): 2. sullen, morose.

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1889.  Nottingham dial., Clunch, morose, sulky.

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