clink1
[klingk]
- to make or cause to make a light, sharp, ringing sound: The coins clinked together. He clinked the fork against a glass.
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- a clinking sound.
- Metallurgy. a small crack in a steel ingot resulting from uneven expanding or contracting.
- a pointed steel bar for breaking up road surfaces.
- Archaic. a rhyme; jingle.
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Origin of clink1
1275–1325; Middle English clinken, perhaps < Middle Dutch clinken to sound, ring, resound
clink2
[klingk]
- a prison; jail; lockup.
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Origin of clink2
1505–15; after Clink, name of prison in Southwark, London, perhaps < Dutch klink door-latch
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for clink
Contemporary Examples
You can clink your wine glass and deliver an impassioned speech about conquering the demons that kept you confined in the closet.
Sannikov and the other opposition candidates are arrested and thrown in the clink, along with thousands of ordinary citizens.
The penalty was what Kozlovsky alluded to without knowledge of its origin: 15 days in the clink, plus a fine.
All day long the place rings with the clink of hammers and the clang of metal bars.
Read ‘The King in Yellow,’ the ‘True Detective’ Reference That’s the Key to the ShowRobert W. Chambers
February 20, 2014
Try to remember that name as you curse him out on your way to the clink.
Historical Examples
Fists often pounded on the bar, causing the glasses to clink.
L'AssommoirEmile Zola
Surely the clink of the iron shoe of a horse on a stone in the road!
Rodney, the RangerJohn V. Lane
He heard them even before he had left his bunk—the clink, creak, creak!
Blazed Trail StoriesStewart Edward White
We find him living on the Bankside and in the Liberty of the Clink at least as early as 1577.
Shakespearean PlayhousesJoseph Quincy Adams
The fact that he was for a time "committed to the Clink" failed to deter him.
Shakespearean PlayhousesJoseph Quincy Adams
clink1
- to make or cause to make a light and sharply ringing sound
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- a light and sharply ringing sound
- British a pointed steel tool used for breaking up the surface of a road before it is repaired
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Word Origin
C14: perhaps from Middle Dutch klinken; related to Old Low German chlanch, German Klang sound
clink2
- a slang word for prison
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Word Origin
C16: after Clink, name of a prison in Southwark, London
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for clink
v.
early 14c., echoic (cf. Dutch klinken, Old High German klingan, German klingen). Related: Clinked; clinking. The noun in the sound sense is from c.1400.
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n.2
"prison," 1770s, apparently originally (early 16c.) the Clynke on Clink Street in Southwark, on the estate of the bishops of Winchester. To kiss the clink "to be imprisoned" is from 1580s, and the word and the prison name might be cognate derivatives of the sound made by chains or metal locks (see clink (v.)).
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n.1
"sharp, ringing sound made by collision of sonorous (especially metallic) bodies," c.1400, from clink (v.).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper