Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Sports A number one golf iron, having very little loft to the club face.
- n. Sports A number four wood.
- n. Scots A large hook, such as one used to hang a pot over a fire.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. See cleik.
Wiktionary
- n. A large hook.
- n. golf, dated A metal headed golf club with little loft. Equivalent to a one or two iron a modern set of clubs.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A large hook or crook, as for a pot over a fire; specif., an iron-headed golf club with a straight, narrow face and a long shaft.
- n. Scot. Act of cleeking; a clutch.
- v. To seize; clutch; snatch; catch; pluck.
- v. To catch or draw out with a cleek, as a fish; to hook.
- v. To hook or link (together); hence, to marry.
Etymologies
- From the Scots. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English cleike, large hook, from cleken, to grasp, variant of clechen, from Old English *clǣcan; probably akin to clyccan, to clutch. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Some men fancy one type, and some another, and each of them obtains approximately the same result from his own selection, but it is natural that a driving cleek, which is specially designed for obtaining length, having a fairly straight face and plenty of weight, will generally deliver the ball further than those which are more lofted and lighter.”
“But one finds by long experience that the cleek is the best and most reliable club for use in all these difficult circumstances.”
“There is another shot with the cleek which is more difficult than that we have just been discussing, one which it will take many weeks of arduous practice to master, but which, in my opinion, is one of the most valuable and telling shots in golf, and that is the push which is a half shot.”
“Sequels to popular franchises tend to open stronger than stand alone set pieces. cleek says:”
“I think some states (MA?) have a system like this already. cleek Says:”
“I shudder to think thinking about Shudder to Think. cleek » Something To Du says:”
Matthew Yglesias » Everything Feels Like a Copy of a Copy of a Copy
“If this was written by a Liberal the screams of antisemitism would be coming from the right if similar statements were made. cleek Says:”
“I hope the snippets of hardball rhetoric we are starting to hear from the White House and a few members of the Democratic caucus are only a glimpse of things to come. cleek says:”
“I thought Rahm was apologizing to the retards for comparing them to liberals … did I have that wrong? cleek says:”
“Why are the Republicans so intent on giving our enemies exactly what they really, really want? cleek says:”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cleek’.
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golf related words
everything golf
airshot, albatross, backswing, baff, baffy, birdie, birdieing, bisque, blaster, bogey, brassy, brassie and 102 more...
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Hence
Words with definitions that have a "hence" in them.
hanger, Deet, tripe, spindlelegs, fiddle, store, pluck, snap, villain, link, comedy, particular and 410 more...
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Golf Clubs
Mostly the older and odder-named clubs employed to baff, and sclaff, and otherwise underclub golf balls.
mashy, lob-wedge, sand wedge, play-club, brassy-cleik, cambuca, short-spoon, mid-spoon, brassy-niblick, putting-cleek, mid-mashie, mashy-niblick and 31 more...
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Golf Words
I loathe golf, but I love the olde fashioned names for the clubs.
playclub, brassie, spoon, cleek, baffy, mashie, niblick, divot, chilly-dip, the yips, skull, texas wedge and 41 more...
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Hooks
hook, Captain Hook, shook, grappling hook, meat hook, pruning hook, hooks, hook 'em horns, Hook 'em Horns, sky-hook, hook, line, and s..., hook, line and si... and 66 more...
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Under The Kilt
Anything related to Scottish culture, cuisine, language, history and so on. Does not include Gaelic words unless acceptable (roughly speaking!) in a wider sense.
brae, machair, loch, burn, inverness, shieling, camanachd, shinty, diddy, bhoy, ghillie, brownie and 393 more...
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puzzlers
words learned from crossword puzzles
ott, ogee, ulee, aida, cleek, stlo, yser, eero, sniggle, nostrum, oxlip, agist and 32 more...
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eek!
cleek, leek, reek, sleek, eek, cheek, fenugreek, greek, creek, meek, geek, week and 7 more...
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household words
oikonomia, domain, menage, mansion, manor, manse, demesne, menial, arsenal, haft, decumbence, katoikountes and 68 more...
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By Hook or By Crook
From the book by David Crystal
cleek, cleeky, slew, lay-by, daylights, blurb, frequentness, beedom, cob, sociable, calash, bracteate and 28 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cleek.
knitandpurl David Crystal writes: "And I hadn't realized that classic crooks have hooks at both ends, one larger than the other. One is large enough to catch hold of a sheep's neck; the other end is smaller, for catching hold of the hind foot. He called it a 'leg cleek." (pp 8-9)
And then: "It seems to have been a Scottish word originally, in the fifteenth century. A hook for catching hold of something, or pulling something, or hanging something up. Fishermen used it a lot. And then it turned up again in the nineteenth century, in gold, referring to a type of club." (p 9)
And: "In parts of Scotland, to this day, if someone calls you cleeky, they mean you're grasping, captious." (p 9)
And: "And in the jazz era it turned up again, meaning a wet blanket at a party, a party-pooper. Beatniks in the US used it in the 1960s for any sad or melancholy person." (p 9)
If you can't tell, I just started reading By Hook or By Crook by David Crystal, and am loving it so far. Dec 13, 2008
reesetee Love it! Apr 16, 2007
sonofgroucho For a minute, I thought you meant clique. I've never heard of a cleek! Apr 16, 2007
trivet one iron, in old golf lingo Apr 16, 2007