Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The incombustible residue, fused into an irregular lump, that remains after the combustion of coal.
  • noun A partially vitrified brick or a mass of bricks fused together.
  • noun An extremely hard burned brick.
  • noun Vitrified matter expelled by a volcano.
  • noun A sour note in a musical performance.
  • noun A mistake; a blunder.
  • noun Something of inferior quality; a conspicuous failure.
  • noun Chiefly British Something admirable or first-rate.
  • intransitive verb To form clinkers in burning.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun That which clinks. Specifically
  • noun A metal-heeled shoe used in dancing jigs.
  • noun The partly melted and agglutinated residuum of the combustion of coal which has a fusible ash.
  • noun A partially vitrified brick or mass of bricks.
  • noun A kind of hard Dutch or Flemish brick, used for paving yards and stables.
  • noun Vitrified or burnt matter thrown up by a volcano.
  • noun A scale of black oxid of iron, formed when iron is heated to redness in the open air.
  • noun A deep impression of a horse's or cow's foot; a small puddle so formed.
  • To form clinker; become incrusted with clinker.
  • noun In cricket, a ball bowled exceedingly well.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A mass composed of several bricks run together by the action of the fire in the kiln.
  • noun Scoria or vitrified incombustible matter, formed in a grate or furnace where anthracite coal in used; vitrified or burnt matter ejected from a volcano; slag.
  • noun A scale of oxide of iron, formed in forging.
  • noun A kind of brick. See Dutch clinker, under Dutch.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Someone or something that clinks.
  • noun in the plural Fetters.
  • noun Someone or something that clinches.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb clear out the cinders and clinker from
  • verb turn to clinker or form clinker under excessive heat in burning
  • noun a fragment of incombustible matter left after a wood or coal or charcoal fire
  • noun a hard brick used as a paving stone

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Obsolete Dutch klinckaerd, from Middle Dutch klinken, to clink; see clink. N., senses 5 and 6, from clink.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Dutch klinkaerd, later klinker, from klinken ("to ring, resound").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From clink +‎ -er.

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Examples

  • If clinker is found on the ground, a coal seam is bound to be underneath.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » An Insufficiently Deferential D.C. Circuit? 2010

  • The clinker is that the chain decides which Canadian authors they will display and advertise from a list of authors that the six publishers submit.

    Independents Falling: Correction or Foreshadowing? 2007

  • The wreck is described as clinker built, a shipbuilding style which dates back to the Viking era, but used for centuries afterwards.

    Medieval boat wreck to be lifted out of Boyne in days 2007

  • The wreck is described as clinker built, a shipbuilding style which dates back to the Viking era, but used for centuries afterwards.

    Archive 2007-07-01 2007

  • The mix which emerges as lumps at the end of the firing period is known as clinker; this clinker is then cooled and finely ground, and a small quantity of gypsum - which delays setting time - is added, to give Portland cement itself.

    Chapter 8 1994

  • · A rotary grate discharges the clinker, which is then interground with gypsum in a ball-mill.

    Chapter 4 1988

  • Moreover, the clinker, which is of excessively hard character, has to be reduced by means of a crusher to particles sufficiently small to be admitted by the millstones, where it is ground into a fine powder, and becomes the Portland cement of commerce.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 Various

  • Here some type of a so-called clinker breaker removes the refuse.

    Steam, Its Generation and Use

  • An enormous dome, made of concrete, holds the pelletize cement, called clinker, that GCC sells around the middle and western United States.

    News/local from www.chieftain.com 2009

  • When a musician performs a Bach Fugue or Beethoven Sonata, a wrong note is called a "clinker," and can be as jarring as a mixed-up before-and-after ad.

    Michael Sigman: Once Is A Mistake, Twice Is Jazz 2009

  • Lime has a chemical structure that makes it clingy or cementitious, and more so when mixed with other minerals in the shale and clays — and together they form what is called “clinker,” or “gray gold,” built of tiny interlocking crystals

    Reinventing the world’s favorite building material

Comments

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  • Usage note on lapstrake.

    May 1, 2008

  • “The United States spends more energy to produce a ton of cement clinker than Canada, Mexico and even China.�?

    The New York Times, Energy Inefficient , January 18, 2009

    January 19, 2009

  • "Then she opened the door of the cold and silent furnace and stuck her hand inside. 'Eureka!' she shouted, with a loud, metallic echo, for there at the bottom of the furnace, with a sparse scattering of ashes and one forgotten clinker, lay the clue!"

    Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright, p 195 of the 2008 paperback

    July 15, 2011