Claw-Hammer, subs. (Irish).—A dress coat. [From a supposed similarity
in the cut of the tails to a claw hammer, one end of which is divided
into two claws, for extracting nails from wood.] Also called steel-pen
coat and swallow-tail. For synonyms of evening dress generally, see
War-paint.
1863. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Passages from English Note-books, I.,
538. Sea-captains call a dress-coat a claw-hammer.
1883. Punch, July 21, p. 29, col. 2. An ‘Impressionist’ is not
impressive In a claw-hammer on a public platform.
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, Nov. 11, p. 7, col. 1. After the
claw-hammer crowd had been exhausted, he sent up an invitation to
the great army of unvarnished.
Clay, subs. (colloquial).—A clay pipe. Cf., Yard of clay, but for
synonyms, see Churchwarden.
1859. Fairholt, Tobacco (1876), 173. Such long pipes were
reverently termed aldermen in the last age, and irreverently yards
of clay in the present one.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xxi., p. 223. ‘He is
churchwarden at home, and can’t smoke anything but a long clay.’
1866. London Miscellany, 19 May, p. 235, col. 2. Surely these men,
who win and lose fortunes with the stolidity of a mynheer smoking
his clay yard, must be of entirely different stuff from the rest of
us.
1871. Calverley, Verses and Tr. Ode Tobacco. Jones ... daily
absorbs a clay after his labours.
To moisten, soak, or wet one’s clay, verbal phr.—To drink. [Clay = the
human body.]
1708. Brit Apollo, No. 80, 3, 1. We were moistening our clay.
1711. Addison, Spectator, No. 72, par. 9. To moisten their clay,
and grow immortal by drinking.
1731. Fielding, Letter Writers, Act ii., Sc. 2. A soph, he is
immortal, And never can decay; For how should he return to dust Who
daily wets his clay?
1790. Rhodes, Bombastes Furioso. Moistening our clay and puffing
off our cares.
1800. Morning Chronicle (in Whibley, p. 92). Cram not your attics
With dry mathematics, But moisten your clay with a bumper of wine.
1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxxix., p. 345. Ever and anon
moistening his clay and his labours with a glass of claret.
1837. Barham, I. L. (The Monstre Baloon). And they’re feasting the
party, and soaking their clay, With Johannisberg, Rudesheimer,
Moselle, and Tokay.
1864. Lowell, Fireside Trav., 119. When his poor old clay was wet
with gin. [m.]
Clean, adj. and adv. (colloquial and expletive).—1. Entirely;
altogether; e.g., clean gone, clean broke, etc. Employed by the best
writers until a recent date, and scarce colloquial even now.
1888. W. E. Henley, A Book of Verses, ‘Ballade of a Toyokuni Colour
Print.’ Child, although I have forgotten clean, I know That in the
shade of Fuji-san, What time the cherry orchards blow, I loved you,
once, in old Japan.
1890. Mark Rutherford (‘Reuben Shapcott’), Miriam’s Schooling, p.
11. The memory of the battle by the hill Moreh is clean forgotten.