clough

Meanings

1. A narrow valley; a cleft in a hillside; a ravine, glen, or gorge.
2. A sluice used in returning water to a channel after depositing its sediment on the flooded land.
3. The cleft or fork of a tree; crotch.
4. A wood; weald.

1. Alternative form of cloff (“allowance of two pounds in every three hundredweight”).

1. A surname transferred from the common noun.
2. A village and townland in County Down, Northern Ireland.
3. A village in County Laois, Ireland.
4. An extinct town in Meade County, South Dakota, United States.

Etymology

From Middle English clough, clow, cloȝ, from Old English *clōh, from Proto-West Germanic *klą̄h (“cleft, sluice, abyss”), of uncertain origin, possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to form into a ball”). Cognate with Scots cleuch (“gorge; ravine”), Old High German klāh (in placenames), Old High German klingo, klinga (“brook, cataract, gulf, rapids”). Perhaps conflated or influenced by Old Norse klofi (“a cleft or rift in a hill, ravine”); compare Dutch kloof (“a slit, crevice, chink”). See also cling, clove.