c. 1863. Thackeray, Men’s Wives, Frank Berry, ch. i. Berry goes
gallantly in, and delivers a clinker on the gown-boy’s jaw.
5. (colloquial, chiefly sporting).—Any thing or person of first-rate
and triumphant quality; also a clincher (q.v.); a ‘settler.’ Cf., sense
4.
1733. Swift, Life and Character Dean S——t. A protestant’s a special
clinker. It serves for sceptic and free-thinker. [m.]
1869. Daily Telegraph, 5 April. Despite the indifferent manner in
which Vagabond cut up at the finish of the Metropolitan, quite
sufficient was seen of him to prove that at a mile and a half he is
a clinker.
1871. Daily News, 17 April, p. 2., col. 1. Ripponden and
Cheesewring performed so indifferently as to strengthen the doubts
whether they are really clinkers.
6. (common).—Deposits of fæcal or seminal matter in the hair about the
anus or the female pudendum.