Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Chiefly British A blunder; a faux pas.
Wiktionary
- n. chiefly UK A very noticeable mistake; an attention-getting faux pas.
- n. Australia, Australian rules football A mistake made by a player; counted in the game statistics in the category "errors including frees against".
- n. Something that clangs; an alarm bell (also figuratively).
- n. The clapper of a bell, anything that strikes a bell or other metal object to make a ringing sound.
- n. An early hi-hat consisting of cymbals mounted on the rim of a bass drum and struck with an arm on the drum's pedal.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. British A conspicuous mistake whose effects seem to reverberate.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a conspicuous mistake whose effects seem to reverberate
Etymologies
- From clang (“loud ringing sound”) + -er. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The other clanger was the very statistically questionable survey done prior to Peter Hain blocking AMs standing both on the regional list and in a constituency.”
“Another clanger, which is called pooping, is of a character that one who is ignorant of the might of the ocean when aroused, would not be apt to foresee.”
“To half-time - and this was the part that mattered - the Bulldogs had 21 '' clanger '' kicks, an astonishing number.”
“1. Spock watching destruction of Vulcan = Leia at the destruction of Alderaan 2. Scotty's Ewok-like friend, who I am informed is called a "clanger" in the SW-verse.”
“The only clanger was the crackling, one half of which was flabby and inedible.”
The Guardian: Lancaster's 10 best budget restaurants, pubs and cafes
“You might not have noticed it, but Patrick just admitted he dropped a clanger on "Mandatory". in a mandatory [ie not mandatory - dd] system that encourages private accounts to the point that only someone with the IQ of a head of lettuce wouldn't get it, be my guest.”
Perspectives on Social Security, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Oops, Business minister Baroness Vadera seems to have dropped a clanger - the BBC are reporting that "Baroness Vadera was asked when the UK could expect to see some" green shoots "and replied:" It's a very uncertain world right now globally ...”
“Too much can be extrapolated from Michael Carrick's clanger in passing to Yaya Touré on the edge of the United penalty box and Touré then scoring the game's only goal.”
The Guardian: Manchester City's disparate stars unite to change the script
“Surely not a coincedence that having been linked with a move to Arsenal, Mark Schwarzer drops a clanger," reports David Keith.”
The Guardian: World Cup 2010: Germany v Australia - as it happened
“(Soundbite of music) Mr. METHENY: Like right there, that's a clanger.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘clanger’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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UK - slang
chin wag, arse about, bollock, starkers, sweet Fanny Adams, skive, shufti, codswallop, rhyming slang, bollocks, nookie, skew-whiff and 208 more...
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British Cant & Slang, Old & New
Mostly, the cant words come from my reprint of Francis Grose's 1785 dictionary of 'The Vulgar Tongue', while the more modern slang has been found at various online sources, e.g. this online diction...
bog-standard, bumbaclot, brown trouser moment, bingo wings, bobfoc, babber, sweating, tantadlin tart, taplash, timber toe, tray trip, twiddle-diddles and 209 more...
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The Crow Road
Words encountered while reading Iain Banks's terrific "The Crow Road"
machair, brindle, nimrod, cullen skink, lochan, the kyles of bute, kip, gateaux blaster, condign, percussive cremation, ballast mound, braw and 71 more...
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Distinctly British
Mostly but not limited to slang and some cockney guffy wibble
haberdashery, coventry, knackered, cack-handed, bate, bimble, blag, boffin, bonce, brolly, busk, cack and 71 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for clanger.
bilby As in Clanger Mouse, cartoon blooperhero. Aug 7, 2010
neshtor When I read the examples given for "clanger" it struck me that in several examples -clanger- seems to be mistyped (or mis-scanned OCR) from -danger-, the -cl- stemming from a disrupted letter -d-. Occurs a lot with www.gutenberg.org files. Aug 7, 2010
neshtor Equality of rights is most in clanger (danger) of being violated when the exercise of rights is associated with power, and any unusual amount of power is usually derived from the association of a number of individuals for a common purpose. Aug 7, 2010
sionnach The Clangers were small creatures living in peace and harmony on - and inside - a small, hollow planet, far far away, nourished by Blue String Pudding, and Green Soup harvested from the planet's volcanic soup wells by the Soup Dragon. The Clangers looked similar to mice, anteaters and, from their pink colour, pigs. They wore clothes reminiscent of Roman armour and spoke in whistles. The word "Clanger" is said to derive from the sound made by opening the metal cover of one of the creatures' crater-like burrows. Each of these is covered with a door made from an old metal dustbin lid, which is there to protect against meteorite impacts. Jan 25, 2009
johnmperry You drop a clanger rather than make one. Jun 19, 2008