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I'll never say nothin' agin him, nor no man; but he knows what's o'clock, he does, uncommon.

1849-50. Thackeray, Pendennis, I., p. 138. I'm not clever, p'raps, but I am rather downy, and partial friends say that I know what's o'clock tolerably well.

Clock Stopped.—See Tick.

Clod-Crushers, subs. (popular).—1. Clumsy boots. [In agriculture an implement for pulverising clods. Cf., Beetle-crushers, and for synonyms, see Trotter-cases.]

2. (common).—Large feet. [A transferred usage.—See sense 1.]

Clods and Stickings, subs. phr. (paupers').—See quot.

1871. Daily Telegraph, 24 Oct., Henry Melville's (the pauper) passionate, 'beutiful,' for Stepney Workhouse is a grotesque reflex of Marie Stuart's pathetic farewell to France. Is the skilly we wonder most 'beutiful' at Stepney, or are the clods and stickings unusually free from bone.

Cloister-Roush, subs. (Winchester College: obsolete).—See quot.

1870. Mansfield, School Life at Winchester College, p. 117. We had some singular customs at the commencement of Cloister time. Senior part and Cloisters, just before the entrance of the Masters into School, used to engage in a kind of general tournament; this was called Cloister Roush.

Clootie (Scots).—The Devil.—See Cloots.

1786 Burns, Address to the Deil. Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie.

Cloots (Scots), subs.—Hooves.

1786. Burns, The Death and Dying Words of Puir Mailie. An' no to rin and wear his cloots, Are ither menseless, graceless brutes.

Close as Wax, adv. phr. (general).—Miserly; niggardly; secretive. [A simile derived mainly from close, adj. = hidden or reticent.]

1863. C. Reade. Hard Cash, I., 231. Then commenced a long and steady struggle, conducted with a Spartan dignity and self command, and a countenance as close as wax.

Close-File, subs. (old).—A person secretive or 'close'; not 'open' or communicative. [From close, adj. = secretive + file = a man.]

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 8. Tom Sheppard was always a close file, and would never tell whom he married.

Cloth. [Generally the cloth], subs. (colloquial).—Primarily clergymen; the members of a particular profession. For synonyms, see Devil-dodger.

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers (about 1827), p. 363 (ed. 1857). 'I maintain that that 'ere song's personal to the cloth,' said the mottle-faced gentleman.

1864. Daily Review, Nov. 3. It might have seemed more decorous to draw our illustration of the Doctor's [Revd.] ingenuity from an incident related of two persons who have some right to be considered as in a sense belonging to the cloth—The Abbess and Novice of Andouillets.

Clothes-Line. Able to sleep upon a clothes-line, phr. (common).—Capable of sleeping anywhere or in any position; said of those able and willing to rest as well upon the roughest 'shake-*down' as upon the most comfortable bed. [Cf., Two-penny rope and plank-bed.] Also applied in a transferred sense—a synonym for general capacity and ability.

Clothes-Pin. That's the sort of clothes-pin I am, phr. (popular).—That's the sort of man I am. In the case of women That's the sort of hair-pin (q.v.).