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• clement
  clement

  adjective

  mild or merciful in disposition or character; lenient; compassionate.
• Clement
  Clement

  noun

  a male given name.

clement

¹ American  

[klem-uhnt] / ˈklɛm ənt /

adjective

1. mild or merciful in disposition or character; lenient; compassionate.

   A clement judge reduced his sentence.

2. (of the weather) mild or temperate; pleasant.

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Clement ² American  

[klem-uhnt] / ˈklɛm ənt /

noun

1. a male given name.

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clement British  

/ ˈklɛmənt /

adjective

1. merciful

2. (of the weather) mild

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Other Word Forms

• overclement
  adjective
• clemently
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of clement

First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English either from Old French or directly from Latin clēment-, stem of clēmēns “gentle, merciful”

Explanation

Clement weather is lovely and mild. You might describe a beautiful, warm summer evening as clement. Clement can describe a pleasant climate — "The thing about Hawaii is it's such a clement place, always." — or even a merciful, gentle person. It's much more common to hear the antonym of clement, inclement, describing terrible weather. Clement first appeared in the 13th century as a surname, or last name, from the Latin clementem, "mild or placid," and was used to describe nice weather by the 17th century.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

clement Clement

Come the super-G and Von Allmen benefited from a low bib number as the snow softened in increasingly clement conditions, meaning later racers struggled for speed.

From Barron's ● Feb. 11, 2026

For those of us hoping to find more clement Earth-like worlds, that wasn’t very satisfying.

From Scientific American ● Apr. 10, 2023

The Hampden pitch bore the scars of Saturday's semi-final being played in horrible weather but Sunday's more clement conditions made for an engrossing tie.

From BBC ● Jan. 15, 2023

Los Angeles bills itself as the home of endlessly clement weather.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2022

Squire Julian Gingivere merely nodded, and addressed them in a regal but distant manner: “Good afternoon. Very clement weather for the time of year, don’t you think?”

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

"An hour or two of exposure is enough to trigger glycosylation, or the binding of smoke to the sugars in the grapes," said oenology consultant Clement Prelat, who is advising winemakers in the area.

From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026

To do this, Jessica Clement, a Black woman who has traveled solo to 14 countries, uses TikTok to research destinations but says the value isn’t in the videos themselves.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 6, 2026

Clement Delangue's company Hugging Face was breached by a rogue OpenAI bot that broke out of a test environment and autonomously attacked his firm earlier this month.

From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026

Disney has hired prominent attorneys Beth Wilkinson, Jennifer Tatel and Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general with experience arguing before the Supreme Court.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026

Throughout the night, I groggily trudged into the office, nodded to Patrice and Clement, and made herbal tea.

From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer