club

Etymology

From Middle English clubbe, from Old Norse klubba, klumba (“cudgel”), from Proto-Germanic *klumpô (“clip, clasp; clump, lump; log, block”), from Proto-Indo-European *glemb- (“log, block”), from *gel- (“to ball up, conglomerate, amass”). Cognate with English clump, cloud, Latin globus, glomus; and perhaps related to Middle Low German kolve (“bulb”), German Kolben (“butt, bulb, club”).

noun

1. An association of members joining together for some common purpose, especially sports or recreation.
   1. (archaic) The fees associated with belonging to such a club.
      He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it. 1783, Benjamin Franklin
2. A heavy object, often a kind of stick, intended for use as a bludgeoning weapon or a plaything.
   The attack also afforded Helena to a front-seat view of literal air-to-air melee combat, as one Wildcat pilot of the Cactus Air Force, who was swooping in to help break up the attack, found himself out of machine-gun ammo; instead, he dropped his landing gear, positioned himself above the nearest bomber, and begun beating it to death, in midair, using his landing gear as clubs. After a bit of evasive action that the fighter easily kept up with, the repeated slamming broke something important, and the bomber spiralled down into the sea. 10 March 2021, Drachinifel, 5:50 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - The Big Night Battle: Night 1 (IJN 3(?) : 2 USN), archived from the original on 2022-10-17
   1. An implement to hit the ball in certain ball games, such as golf.
3. A joint charge of expense, or any person's share of it; a contribution to a common fund.
   17 Mat 1660, Samuel Pepys, diary first we went and dined at a French house , but paid 10s for our part of the club
4. An establishment that provides staged entertainment, often with food and drink, such as a nightclub.
   She was sitting in a jazz club, sipping wine and listening to a bass player's solo.
5. A black clover shape (♣), one of the four symbols used to mark the suits of playing cards.
   1. A playing card marked with such a symbol.
      I've got only one club in my hand.
6. (humorous) Any set of people with a shared characteristic.
   He also wanted to be only the second person to travel solo to at least that depth, the other being James Cameron, who in 2012 took an Australian-built sub into the Mariana Trench, reaching Challenger Deep, the ocean’s deepest point, touching down at close to 36,000 feet. “That’s a nice club to be a part of,” Rush says. Two weeks later, that club welcomed a new member, when a Texas businessman named Victor Vescovo reached 27,000 feet in his own experimental submersible. 2019, Tony Perrottet, “A Deep Dive Into the Plans to Take Tourists to the ‘Titanic’”, in Smithsonian Magazine
   You also hate Night Court? Join the club.
   Michael stood you up? Welcome to the club.
7. A club sandwich.
   Crab cake sandwiches, tuna melts, chicken clubs, salmon cakes, and prime-rib sandwiches are usually on the menu. 2004, Joanne M. Anderson, Small-town Restaurants in Virginia, page 123
8. The slice of bread in the middle of a club sandwich.

verb

1. (transitive) To hit with a club.
   He clubbed the poor dog.
2. (intransitive) To join together to form a group.
3. (intransitive, transitive) To combine into a club-shaped mass.
   a medical condition with clubbing of the fingers and toes
4. (intransitive) To go to nightclubs.
   In London you lived on beans, but you clubbed all night 1997, Sarah Penny, The whiteness of bones, page 4
   I was rarely there —I was clubbing at night, sleeping during the day, back and forth to L.A.—but I had more money than I knew what to do with. 2011, Mackenzie Phillips, High on Arrival
   He had been clubbing until the early hours 2013, Fabrice Humbert, Sila's Fortune
   We went clubbing in Ibiza.
   When I was younger, I used to go clubbing almost every night.
5. (intransitive) To pay an equal or proportionate share of a common charge or expense.
   The owl, the raven, and the bat / Clubb'd for a feather to his hat. 1730, Jonathan Swift, Death and Daphne
6. (transitive) To raise, or defray, by a proportional assessment.
   to club the expense
7. (nautical) To drift in a current with an anchor out.
8. (military) To throw, or allow to fall, into confusion.
   To club a battalion implies a temporary inability in the commanding officer to restore any given body of men to their natural front in line or column. 1876, Major-General G. E. Voyle, Captain G. De Saint-Clair-Stevenson, F.R.G.S., A Military Dictionary, Comprising Terms, Scientific and Otherwise, Connected with the Science of War, Third Edition, London: William Clowes & Sons, page 80
9. (transitive) To unite, or contribute, for the accomplishment of a common end.
   to club exertions
   You see a person, who, added to yourself, would make, you think, a glorious being, and you proceed to idealize accordingly; you stand on his head, and outtower the tallest; you club your brains with his, and are wiser than the wisest; you add the heat of your heart to his, and produce a very furnace of love. 1854, The Eclectic Review, page 147
10. (transitive, military) To turn the breech of (a musket) uppermost, so as to use it as a club.