Also 7 clunche, clounch. [Probably sb. use of the prec.; in several senses it corresponds to LG. klunt, and possibly to a lost Eng. sb. of that form. But the analogy of bump, bunch, hump, hunch, suggests a similar relation of clump, clunch.]
1. A lump, a heavy and unshapely mass.
(Known only in mod. dialect, but prob. of considerable age.) [So EFris. klunt.]
1888. Sheffield Gloss., Clunch, a lump. ‘He’s got a clunch of snow on his boot.’
2. A lumpish fellow, a clown, boor, lout. Cf. CLOD, CLOT. Obs. exc. dial. [So EFris. klunt.]
1602. Clapham, Serm. St. Peter’s, in J. Manningham, Diary (1868), 116. Howe like a clowne, a clunche, an asse, he aunswers.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I. xv. A very clounch, and bacon-slicer of Brene.
1658. Cleveland, Rustic Rampant, Wks. (1687), 414. These rascals, scorned and sleighted by every tatter’d Clunch.
1875. Lanc. Gloss., Clunch, a clodhopper or boor.
1878. Cumbrld. Gloss., Clunch, a heavy stupid person or animal.
† 3. A (clumsy) hand, ‘fist.’ Obs. [? Influenced by CLUTCH, or by CLENCH (see CLUNCH v.); but cf. EFris. klunt a clumsy, clodhopping foot.]
1709. W. King, Art of Love, v. Others try her greasy Clunches With stoning Currants in whole Bunches.
4. A name given locally to various stiff clays; esp. an indurated clay of the coal-measures.
1679. Plot, Staffordsh. (1686), 131. Upon the surface they meet first with earth and stone, 2. blew clunch.
1712. F. Bellers, in Phil. Trans., XXVII. 541. A Blewish hard Clay; the Miners call it Clunch. This is one of the certain Signs of Coal.
1816. W. Smith, Strata Ident., 21. Hard clay rising in lumps, called Clunch.
5. A soft white limestone forming the lower and harder beds of the chalk, occasionally used for building purposes, esp. internal carved work.
1823. Nichols, Progr. Q. Eliz., III. 76, note. Carved in clunch or soft stone.
1844. Ansted, Geology, II. 455 (L.). Like other kinds of clunch (as the lower chalk is sometimes called), this bed forms an easily cut and a very useful material for certain kinds of internal decorative work.
1879. Sir G. Scott, Lect. Archit., I. 188. The western portal … owing to the friable clunch of which it is constructed, has lost the greater part of its decorations.
6. Comb., as clunch-clay, = 4; also the Oxford Clay; clunch-lime = 5.
1815. W. Smith, Mem. to Map Strata Eng. & Wales, 19. In the vale of Blackmore … the *clunch clay … from the base of the Chalk hills to the edge of the Cornbrash limestone.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 79. A bed of clay, called clunch clay and Oxford clay, separates the lower oolites from the middle oolites.
1793. Smeaton, Edystone L., § 210. What is called near Lewis in Sussex, the *Clunch Lime … a species of chalk.
