clog

Etymology

Unknown; perhaps from Middle English clog (“weight attached to the leg of an animal to impede movement”). Perhaps of North Germanic origin; compare Old Norse klugu, klogo (“knotty tree log”), Dutch klomp.

noun

1. A type of shoe with an inflexible, often wooden sole sometimes with an open heel.
   Dutch people rarely wear clogs these days.
   She stomped up the stairs. Her clogs slammed against the pine boards of the staircase and shook the house. 2002, Alice Sebold, chapter 5, in The Lovely Bones, Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, page 92
2. A blockage.
   The plumber cleared the clog from the drain.
3. (UK, colloquial) A shoe of any type.
   I let him in this morning. He lost one of his clogs. 1987, Bruce Robinson, Withnail and I, spoken by Withnail
4. A weight, such as a log or block of wood, attached to a person or animal to hinder motion.
   A clog of lead was round my feet / A band of pain across my brow; 1855, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Letters”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, page 115
5. That which hinders or impedes motion; an encumbrance, restraint, or impediment of any kind.
   All the ancient, honest, juridical principles and institutions of England, are so many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression. 1777, Edmund Burke, A Letter from Edmund Burke: Esq; one of the representatives in Parliament for the city of Bristol, to John Farr and John Harris, Esqrs. sheriffs of that city, on the Affairs of America, London: J. Dodsley, page 8

verb

1. To block or slow passage through (often with 'up').
   Hair is clogging the drainpipe.
   The roads are clogged up with traffic.
2. To encumber or load, especially with something that impedes motion; to hamper.
3. To burden; to trammel; to embarrass; to perplex.
4. (law) To enforce a mortgage lender right that prevents a borrower from exercising a right to redeem.
   1973, Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Doerr, 123 N.J. Super. 530, 544, 303 A.2d 898. For centuries it has been the rule that a mortgagor’s equity of redemption cannot be clogged and that he cannot, as a part of the original mortgage transaction, cut off or surrender his right to redeem. Any agreement which does so is void and unenforceable as against public policy.
5. (intransitive) To perform a clog dance.
   And in a burst of Celtic drums and fiddles, a bosomy colleen with a jaunty green hat and suit jacket riverdanced onto the stage, clogging with a surprising degree of expertise, barely restrained breasts jiggling. 2014, Jeff Abbott, Cut and Run