Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In pathology: A corn.
  • noun A nail-shaped excrescence.
  • noun In entomology: The club of the antenna.
  • noun The knob at the end of the stigmal or radial rein of a chalcidid or proctotrypid hymenopterous parasite.
  • noun . In costume:
  • noun [L.] In Roman antiquity, a vertical stripe or band of purple color in the tissue of the tunic. Senators were distinguished by the broad stripe or laticlavus; knights and others wore the narrow stripe or angusticlavus. See laticlave and angusticlave.
  • noun [LL. ML.] Under the Byzantine empire and in church vestments, a plain border; a round spot supposed to resemble a nail-head, used chiefly in groups or clusters at the edge of the stuff, forming a border.
  • noun [NL.] A grain of rye, or other cereal or grass, affected with ergot: applied to the immature or sclerotium stage of the fungus, which was formerly known as Sclerotium clavus.
  • noun 3. [NL.] In pathology, a pain in the head limited to one spot, as if a nail were being driven in.
  • noun [NL.] In entomology, the nail; the interior basal part of the hemielytrum of a heteropterous insect.

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

  • noun A callous growth, esp. one the foot; a corn.

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

  • noun A callous growth, especially on the foot; a corn.

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

  • noun a hard thickening of the skin (especially on the top or sides of the toes) caused by the pressure of ill-fitting shoes

Etymologies

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

[Latin clāvus, nail, callus.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin, a nail.

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Examples

  • They take their name from the Latin word clavus, or the French clou, both meaning a nail, and to which the clove has a considerable resemblance.

    The Book of Household Management Isabella Mary 1861

  • They take their name from the Latin word clavus, or the French clou, both meaning a nail, and to which the clove has a considerable resemblance.

    The Book of Household Management Isabella Mary 1861

  • The clavus was a purple border, by which the senators, and other orders, with the magistrates, were distinguished; the breadth of the stripe corresponding with their rank.

    The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 02: Augustus Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus

  • These hysteric affections are not necessarily attended with pain; though it sometimes happens, that pains, which originate from quiescence, afflict these patients, as the hemicrania, which has erroneously been termed the clavus hystericus; but which is owing solely to the inaction of the membranes of that part, like the pains attending the cold fits of intermittents, and which frequently returns like them at very regular periods of time.

    Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • The clavus was a purple border, by which the senators, and other orders, with the magistrates, were distinguished; the breadth of the stripe corresponding with their rank.] [Footnote 225: In which the whole humour of the thing consisted either in the uses to which these articles were applied, or in their names having in

    De vita Caesarum Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus

  • They will have another nine days as they prepare for a conclave, cumme clave, a cumme clavus, the locking in to the Sistine Chapel.

    CNN Transcript Apr 2, 2005 2005

  • From there, six thousand men wended their way in solemn order across the Velia and down the Clivus Sacer into the lower Forum, most of them knights with the narrow stripe — the angustus clavus — on their tunics, a thinned Senate following behind the consuls and their lictors.

    The Grass Crown McCullough, Colleen, 1937- 1991

  • His togas [224] were neither scanty nor full; (127) and the clavus was neither remarkably broad or narrow.

    The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 02: Augustus Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus

  • His togas [224] were neither scanty nor full; (127) and the clavus was neither remarkably broad or narrow.

    De vita Caesarum Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus

  • Cloves (from _clavus_, a nail), also found in the kitchen spice box, and owning certain medicinal resources of a cordial sort, which are quickly available, belong to the Myrtle family of plants, and are the unexpanded flower buds of an aromatic tree (_Caryophyllus_), cultivated at Penang and elsewhere.

    Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie

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  • or an accomodation toward ill fitting

    September 7, 2009