Definitions

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

  • noun pejorative a stupid person; blockhead

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

clod +‎ pole (“head”)

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Examples

  • "This letter, being so excellently ignorant ... it comes from a clodpole."

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  • Now will not I deliver his letter: for the behavior of the young gentleman gives him out to be of good capacity and breeding; his employment between his lord and my niece confirms no less: therefore this letter, being so excellently ignorant, will breed no terror in the youth: he will find it comes from a clodpole.

    Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 2004

  • The learned professions, or black arts, lost at least ninety-five per cent in importance; and so rapid as been the increase of the evil, that, at this time of day, it is a hard matter to impose on any clodpole in Europe!

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 339, January, 1844 Various

  • The doors are then thrown open, and the lucky clodpole receives the tit-bit as his recompence.

    A Righte Merrie Christmasse The Story of Christ-Tide John Ashton

  • 'You filthy clodpole!' he said, rising from his place and thrusting a prognathous jaw and blazing eyes half-way across the table.

    VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea David Christie Murray

  • Now will not I deliver his letter: for the behaviour of the young gentleman gives him out to be of good capacity and breeding; his employment between his lord and my niece confirms no less: therefore this letter, being so excellently ignorant, will breed no terror in the youth: he will find it comes from a clodpole.

    Act III. Scene IV. Twelfth-Night; or, What You Will 1914

  • Show the dullest clodpole, show the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul higher than himself is actually here; were his knees stiffened into brass, he must down and worship.

    Paras. 1-24 1909

  • "Thou fightest like a clodpole," said the old man.

    Men of Iron 1891

  • A lourdeau, my dear brother, is as we might say a bumpkin, a clown, a clodpole: a fellow without grace, lightness, quickness; any gift of pleasing, any natural brilliancy: such a one as you shall see, when you desire, by looking in the mirror.

    Account of All That Passed on the Night on February 27th, 1757 1889

  • "Thou fightest like a clodpole," said the old man.

    Men of Iron Howard Pyle 1882

Comments

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  • Almost as good as squarehead. :-)

    April 29, 2008

  • "I've turned invisible, as any clodpole with half an ounce of sense can plainly see," snorted Doli.

    --Lloyd Alexander, 1968, The High King

    April 29, 2008

  • see also clotpoll.

    June 17, 2008

  • On the very next morning, a sort of clodpole, with a portmanteau across his shoulders, knocked at the door of Florence's father.

    - Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 5 ch. 1

    September 19, 2008