clock
/klɑk/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.43 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A chronometer, an instrument that measures time, particularly the time of day.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A common noun relating to an instrument that measures or keeps track of time.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
An electrical signal that synchronizes timing among digital circuits of semiconductor chips or modules.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "When the clock says midnight."
- "The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock Beats out the little lives of men."
- "An interesting feature of the church is the invisible clock, which you can hear thumping away as you enter. Constructed in 1525, it is one of the oldest timepieces in England. It chimes the hours and the quarters, and every three hours it plays a hymn. But it has no faces."
- "In the June days of 1848 Baudelaire reports seeing revolutionaries (he might have been one of them) going through the streets of Paris with rifles, shooting all the clocks."
- "A 12-hour clock system; an antique clock sale; Acme is a clock manufacturer."
- "This car has over 300,000 miles on the clock."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Celtic *klokkosder. Early Medieval Latin cloccader. Old Northern French cloquebor. Old Dutch *klokka Middle Dutch clockebor. Middle English clokke English clock First use appears c. 1370. From Middle English clokke, clok, cloke (“clock”), from Middle Dutch clocke (“bell, clock”), from Old Dutch *klokka, from Medieval Latin clocca (“bell, clock, cloak”), probably of Celtic origin, from Proto-Celtic *klokkos (“bell”) (compare Welsh cloch (“bell”), Old Irish cloc (“bell, clock”)), either onomatopoeic or from Proto-Indo-European *klek- (“to laugh, cackle”) (compare Proto-Germanic *hlahjaną (“to laugh”)). Cognate with Old English clucge (“bell”), Saterland Frisian Klokke (“bell, clock”), Dutch klok (“clock, bell”), Low German Klock (“bell, clock”), German Glocke (“bell”), Danish and Norwegian klokke (“clock, bell”), Faroese klokka (“clock, bell”), Icelandic klukka (“clock, bell”), Swedish klocka (“clock, bell”), Asturian llueca (“cowbell”), Galician and Portuguese choca (“cowbell”), Doublet of cloak and cloche.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /klɑk/
- British English: /klɒk/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
Synonyms
clock patience
time
slug
smack
thump
whack
read
turn back (the vehicle's) clock
wind back (the vehicle's) clock
chronometer
odometer