clink

• IPA^(key): /klɪŋk/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

From Middle English clinken, from Old English *clincan (compare clynnan, clynian (“to sound; resound”)), from Proto-Germanic *klinganą (“to sound”). Cognates include Middle Dutch klinken and German klingen. Related to cling (sound) and clang. May be further related to call.

Perhaps of onomatopoeic origin, as metal against metal.

clink (plural clinks)

The clink of metal being dropped on the ground

1. (onomatopoeia) The sound of metal on metal, or glass on glass.

   You could hear the clink of the glasses from the next room.

   • 1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life Chapter V

     When Frere had come down, an hour before, the prisoners were all snugly between their blankets. They were not so now; though, at the first clink of the bolts, they would be back again in their old positions, to all appearances sound asleep.

2. Stress cracks produced in metal ingots as they cool after being cast.

clink (third-person singular simple present clinks, present participle clinking, simple past and past participle clinked)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To make a clinking sound; to make a sound of metal on metal or glass on glass; to strike materials such as metal or glass against one another.

   The hammers clinked on the stone all night.

   • 1830 June, Alfred Tennyson, “Mariana”, in Poems. , volume I, London: Edward Moxon, , published 1842, →OCLC, stanza I, page 10:

     The broken sheds look'd sad and strange, / Unlifted was the clinking latch, / Weeded and worn the ancient thatch / upon the lonely moated grange.

   • 2022, Ling Ma, “G”, in Bliss Montage, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN:

     On the other side: the rich, beautiful tapestry of WASP culture that constituted Levis's life—friends playing horseshoes at backyard cocktail parties, where girls swanned in chaise longues, clinking their gin and tonics.

2. (humorous, dated) To rhyme.

From the Clink prison in Southwark, London, itself presumably named after sound of doors being bolted or chains rattling.

• klink

clink (plural clinks)

1. (dated, slang) A prison.

   If he keeps doing things like that, he’s sure to end up in the clink.

• See also Thesaurus:jail

clink (third-person singular simple present clinks, present participle clinking, simple past and past participle clinked)

1. (transitive, Scotland) To clinch; to rivet.

• Linck