clinker — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A very hard brick used for paving customarily made in the Netherlands.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Synonyms

   Dutch clinker

   Examples

   She left the road at the little shed where he whom she still regarded as her father used to keep his tricycle, and walked up the clinker path towards the house.

2. A mass of bricks fused together by intense heat.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

3. Slag or ash produced by intense heat in a furnace, kiln or boiler that forms a hard residue upon cooling.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   The coal was terrible stuff—Indian, Abdul told me. The "dart" was used often and I saw some monster clinkers.

   Cold and grim sat that malevolent brute the furnace, greedy, bottomless—its grate bars clenched over clinkers which no shaker could dislodge.

4. An intermediate product in the manufacture of Portland cement, obtained by sintering limestone and alumino-silicate materials such as clay into nodules in a cement kiln.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

5. Hardened volcanic lava.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   This wall of rock, which had no doubt once formed the lip of the crater, was about a mile and a half thick, and still covered with clinker.

   Nobody could pretend that a huge slope of clinker is aesthetically pleasing.

6. A scum of oxide of iron formed in forging.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

Verb

1. To convert or be converted into clinker.

   Usage

   • Transitive or intransitive

   Examples

   More examples (2)

   This burning has baked and clinkered the adjacent strata, producing a very resistant formation, which rises with conspicuous abruptness from the flat terrace underlain by the soft Lebo shale member.

   The use of coal with a low ash fusion temperature (1204°C, or 2200°F) caused frequent clinkering on the grate during initial tests. The clinkering stopped when the coal was replaced with one having a higher fusion temperature […]

Noun

1. Someone or something that clinks.

2. Fetters.

   Usage

   • in-plural

3. A mistake or blunder.

   Usage

   • Slang

Noun

1. A style of boatbuilding using overlapping planks.

   Usage

   • attributive
   • Uncountable

   Synonyms

   lapstrake

   Examples

   clinker planking; a clinker dinghy

Noun

1. a fragment of incombustible matter left after a wood or coal or charcoal fire

   Synonyms

   cinder

   Broader terms

   fragment

2. a hard brick used as a paving stone

   Synonyms

   clinker brick

   Broader terms

   brick

Verb

1. clear out the cinders and clinker from

   Broader terms

   clean outclear out

   Examples

   we clinkered the fire frequently

2. turn to clinker or form clinker under excessive heat in burning

   Broader terms

   change