My muddy shoe slipped, and I banged my kneecap on a fence rail, clinging for dear life.
The people of Donetsk are clinging to normality, trying to enjoy the spring, but their anger, disillusionment and fear runs deep.
At this moment the revolutionary, like the nation of Syria, is clinging to life.
Abbas is toying with making an appeal to the international community and Netanyahu is clinging onto status quo.
We must acknowledge the passing of the former while clinging ever tighter to the latter.
That clinging mist seemed of evil bodement for our expedition.
Allis knew who the friends were; the clinging touch of stephanotis had come with him.
He alarmed her with his imperious gesture, and she turned from him, clinging to my neck.
And yet Nancy was not clinging to life itself; she only seemed to be, because she clung to love.
Even her weeping and her sobs were stifled by her clinging round him.
Old English clingan "hold fast, adhere closely; congeal, shrivel" (strong verb, past tense clang, past participle clungen), from Proto-Germanic *klingg- (cf. Danish klynge "to cluster;" Old High German klinga "narrow gorge;" Old Norse klengjask "press onward;" Danish klinke, Dutch klinken "to clench;" German Klinke "latch").
The main sense shifted in Middle English to "adhere to" (something else), "stick together." Of persons in embrace, c.1600. Figuratively (to hopes, outmoded ideas, etc.), from 1580s. Of clothes from 1792. Related: Clung; clinging.
