arch. and dial. Also 4–5 clong(e, 6 clounge. [f. CLING v.]
1. Congealed, congested, stiffened: see CLING v.1
2. Drawn together, shrunk, or shrivelled, by the action of heat, cold, hunger, thirst, disease, etc.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 4581. Þai [ears of grain] war so clungun, dri, and tame.
c. 1325. Coer de L., 1385. Off tymber grete schydys clong.
c. 1325. Metr. Hom., 88. Pal and clungen was his chek.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., II. 319. When thaire huske is drie and clonge.
1691. Ray, N. C. Words, Clung, closed up, or stopped, spoken of Hens when they lay not; it is usually said of any thing that is shrivelled or shrunk up.
1814. Month. Mag., XXXVIII. 437/2. The features, tho’ clung, were of exquisite touch.
b. Hide-bound.
1559. Cooper, Thesaurus, Coriago, the sickenesse of cattall when they are clounge, that their skynnes dooe cleve fast to their bodies, hyde bounde.
1580. Baret, Alv., 432. Hidebound, or a sicknesse of cattle being called clung.
3. Pinched with hunger, starving; CLEMMED.
1807. Tannahill, Kebbuckston Wedding, Poet. Wks. (1846), 138. The de’il fill his kyte wha gaes clung frae the meeting.
1833. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, iii. (1859), 95. Clung and famished the poor brute could no longer exist.
4. Clinging, stiff, tenacious; esp. of soil; of the nature of heavy clay.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVI. xix. (1495), 559. Holdith so faste and so is clonge.
1610. W. Folkingham, Art of Survey, I. x. 24. Crust-clung and Soale-bound soyles.
1750. W. Ellis, Mod. Husbandm., I. i. 46. When their black earth works very clung and heavy, they seldom fail of having great crops.
1877. N. W. Lincolnsh. Gloss., Clung, stiff, tenacious, sticky.
1886. S. W. Lincolnsh. Wds., s.v. There’s ten acres on it is clung; it can’t be clunger.
5. Improperly tough, whether through drought, or through damp.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 208. The chaff of the chesses is clung, and wants to be mellowed in order to make it thresh the better.
1883. Hampsh. Gloss., Clung, hard, as wool when it has become dry and tough.
b. Damp and tough.
1875. Parish, Sussex Dial., s.v. The mown grass is spoken of as very clung after having been exposed to wet chilly weather, so that it has not hayed satisfactorily.
1876. Surrey Provinc., Clung, cold, damp; but expressed perhaps by clammy.
6. Out of temper, sullen.
1877. N. W. Lincolnsh. Gloss., Clung … sullen, morose.
1887. Kentish Dial., Clung, withered, dull; out of temper.
Clung, pa. t. and ppl. of CLING v.
