236
ENGLISH AS WE SPEAK IT IN IRELAND.
[CH. XIII.
Clever is applied to a man who is tall, straight, and well made.
Clevvy; three or four shelves one over another in a wall: a sort of small open cupboard like a dresser. (All over the South.)
Clibbin, clibbeen; a young colt. (Donegal.) Irish clibín, same sound and meaning.
Clibbock; a young horse. (Derry.)
Clift; a light-headed person, easily roused and rendered foolishly excited. (Ulster.)
Clipe-clash: a tell-tale. (Ulster.) See Clash.
Clochaun, clochan; a row of stepping-stones across a river. (General.) From Irish cloch, a stone, with the diminutive án.
Clock; a black beetle. (South.)
Clocking hen; a hen hatching. (General.) From the sound or clock she utters.
Clooracaun or cluracaun, another name for a leprachaun, which see.
Close; applied to a day means simply warm:—'This is a very close day.'
Clout; a blow with the hand or with anything. Also a piece of cloth, a rag, commonly used in the diminutive form in Munster—cloutheen. Cloutheens is specially applied to little rags used with an infant. Clout is also applied to a clownish person:—'It would be well if somebody would teach that clout some manners.'
Clove; to clove flax is to scutch it—to draw each handful repeatedly between the blades of a 'cloving tongs,' so as to break off and remove the brittle husk, leaving the fibre smooth and free. (Munster.)
