club

English

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club (disambiguation)

Wikipedia

Etymology

From Middle English clubbe, from Old Norse klubba, klumba (“cudgel”), from Proto-Germanic *klumpô (“clip, clasp; clump, lump; log, block”). Cognate with English clump, cloud, Latin globus, glomus; and perhaps related to Middle Low German kolve (“bulb”), German Kolben (“butt, bulb, club”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: klŭb, IPA^(key): /klʌb/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌb

Noun

club (plural clubs)

2. An association of members joining together for some common purpose, especially sports or recreation.
   • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate , New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, , →OCLC:

     At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors. […] In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

   1. (archaic) The fees associated with belonging to such a club.
      • 1783, Benjamin Franklin:

        He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.

4. A heavy object, often a kind of stick, intended for use as a bludgeoning weapon or a plaything.
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     There were many wooden chairs for the bulk of his visitors, and two wicker armchairs with red cloth cushions for superior people. From the packing-cases had emerged some Indian clubs, […], and all these articles […] made a scattered and untidy decoration that Mrs. Clough assiduously dusted and greatly cherished.

   • 2021 March 10, Drachinifel, 5:50 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - The Big Night Battle: Night 1 (IJN 3(?) : 2 USN)‎, archived from the original on 17 October 2022:

     The attack also afforded Helena to a front-seat view of literal air-to-air melee combat, as one Wildcat pilot of the Cactus Air Force, who was swooping in to help break up the attack, found himself out of machine-gun ammo; instead, he dropped his landing gear, positioned himself above the nearest bomber, and begun beating it to death, in midair, using his landing gear as clubs. After a bit of evasive action that the fighter easily kept up with, the repeated slamming broke something important, and the bomber spiralled down into the sea.

   1. An implement to hit the ball in certain ball games, such as golf.
5. A joint charge of expense, or any person's share of it; a contribution to a common fund.
   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: , London: R Sare, , →OCLC:

     They laid down the Club.

   • 17 Mat 1660, Samuel Pepys, diary

     first we went and dined at a French house , but paid 10s for our part of the club

6. An establishment that provides staged entertainment, often with food and drink, such as a nightclub.

   She was sitting in a jazz club, sipping wine and listening to a bass player's solo.

7. (card games) A black clover shape (♣), one of the four symbols used to mark the suits of playing cards.
   1. A playing card marked with such a symbol.

      I've got only one club in my hand.

8. (humorous) Any set of people with a shared characteristic.
   • 2019, Tony Perrottet, “A Deep Dive Into the Plans to Take Tourists to the ‘Titanic’”, in Smithsonian Magazine:

     He also wanted to be only the second person to travel solo to at least that depth, the other being James Cameron, who in 2012 took an Australian-built sub into the Mariana Trench, reaching Challenger Deep, the ocean’s deepest point, touching down at close to 36,000 feet. “That’s a nice club to be a part of,” Rush says. Two weeks later, that club welcomed a new member, when a Texas businessman named Victor Vescovo reached 27,000 feet in his own experimental submersible.

   You also hate Night Court?  Join the club.

   Michael stood you up?  Welcome to the club.

9. A club sandwich.
   • 2004, Joanne M. Anderson, Small-town Restaurants in Virginia, page 123:

     Crab cake sandwiches, tuna melts, chicken clubs, salmon cakes, and prime-rib sandwiches are usually on the menu.

10. The slice of bread in the middle of a club sandwich.
11. (World War I– World War II, military slang) The propeller of an aeroplane.

Synonyms

• (association of members): confraternity
• (weapon): cudgel
• (sports association): team
• See also Thesaurus:stick

Hyponyms

• sports club

Derived terms

Descendants

• → German: Klub
• → Greek: κλαμπ (klamp), γκλομπ (gklomp), γκλοπ n (gklop); κλομπ n (klomp)
• → Malay: kelab
• → Tokelauan: kalapu

Translations

See also

• wand

Verb

club (third-person singular simple present clubs, present participle clubbing, simple past and past participle clubbed)

1. (transitive) To hit with a club.

   He clubbed the poor dog.

2. (intransitive) To join together to form a group.
   • 1687, [John Dryden], “(please specify the page number)”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: Jacob Tonson , →OCLC:

     Till grosser atoms, tumbling in the stream / Of fancy, madly met, and clubb'd into a dream.

3. (intransitive, transitive) To combine into a club-shaped mass.

   a medical condition with clubbing of the fingers and toes

4. (intransitive) To go to nightclubs.
   • 1997, Sarah Penny, The whiteness of bones‎, page 4:

     In London you lived on beans, but you clubbed all night

   • 2011, Mackenzie Phillips, High on Arrival‎:

     I was rarely there —I was clubbing at night, sleeping during the day, back and forth to L.A.—but I had more money than I knew what to do with.

   • 2013, Fabrice Humbert, Sila's Fortune‎:

     He had been clubbing until the early hours

   We went clubbing in Ibiza.

   When I was younger, I used to go clubbing almost every night.

5. (intransitive) To pay an equal or proportionate share of a common charge or expense.
   • 1730, Jonathan Swift, Death and Daphne:

     The owl, the raven, and the bat / Clubb'd for a feather to his hat.

6. (transitive) To raise, or defray, by a proportional assessment.

   to club the expense

7. (nautical) To drift in a current with an anchor out.
8. (military) To throw, or allow to fall, into confusion.
   • 1876, Major-General G. E. Voyle, Captain G. De Saint-Clair-Stevenson, F.R.G.S., A Military Dictionary, Comprising Terms, Scientific and Otherwise, Connected with the Science of War, Third Edition, London: William Clowes & Sons, page 80:

     To club a battalion implies a temporary inability in the commanding officer to restore any given body of men to their natural front in line or column.

9. (transitive) To unite, or contribute, for the accomplishment of a common end.

   to club exertions

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A Millar, , →OCLC:

     For instance, let us suppose that Homer and Virgil, Aristotle and Cicero, Thucydides and Livy, could have met all together, and have clubbed their several talents to have composed a treatise on the art of dancing: I believe it will be readily agreed they could not have equalled the excellent treatise which Mr Essex hath given us on that subject, entitled, The Rudiments of Genteel Education.

   • 1854, The Eclectic Review, page 147:

     You see a person, who, added to yourself, would make, you think, a glorious being, and you proceed to idealize accordingly; you stand on his head, and outtower the tallest; you club your brains with his, and are wiser than the wisest; you add the heat of your heart to his, and produce a very furnace of love.

10. (transitive, military) To turn the breech of (a musket) uppermost, so as to use it as a club.

Derived terms

• club together
• clubbing
• go clubbing

Translations

References

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from English club.

Noun

club m (plural clubs)

1. club (association)
2. (golf) club

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English club.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klʏp/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: club
• Rhymes: -ʏp

Noun

club m (plural clubs, diminutive clubje n)

1. club, association, organisation
2. (golf) club

Usage notes

• The diminutive clubje is often used derogatorily and tends to connote corruption, collusion and/or subversion.

Derived terms

• clubhuis
• damclub
• golfclub
• handbalclub
• schaakclub
• skiclub
• stamclub
• tennisclub
• voetbalclub

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English club.

Pronunciation

• (France) IPA^(key): /klœb/, /klyb/
• (Quebec) IPA^(key): /klʏb/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

club m (plural clubs)

1. club (association)
2. (golf) club

   Synonym: (Quebec) bâton

Derived terms

• bienvenue au club
• soda club

Descendants

• → Romanian: club
• → Turkish: kulüp

Further reading

• “club”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English club.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈklab/, /ˈklɛb/, /ˈklub/, /ˈkløb/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ab, -ɛb, -ub
• Hyphenation: clùb

Noun

club m (invariable)

1. club (association)
2. club (golf implement)

References

Middle English

Noun

club

1. Alternative form of clubbe

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French club.

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

club n (plural cluburi)

1. club

Declension

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from English club.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈklub/

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ub
• Syllabification: club

Noun

club m (plural clubs or clubes)

1. club (association)

   Synonyms: asociación, cofradía, gremio

Derived terms

Further reading

• “club”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014