Clinch | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Clĭnch, v. t.

verbtransitive

(66), v. t. [imp. & p. p. CLINCHED (klĭncht); p. pr. & vb. n. CLINCHING.] [Also clench, from O. Fr. clenche, clenque, clinke, Norm. Fr. clanche, N. Fr. clinche, latch, from Ger. klinke. See CLICK, n.]

Sense 1. To make, or hold, fast, by folding or embracing closely; to tighten by bending or folding together; to grasp; as, to clinch a nail, to make it fast by bending over the point; to clinch the fist.

Heroes whose dismembered hands yet bear The dart aloft, and clinch the pointed spear. Dryden.

Sense 2. To render firm; to make conclusive; to confirm; to establish; as, to clinch an argument.

Clĭnch, n.

noun

n. 1. The act or process of holding fast, or that which serves to hold fast; as, to get a good clinch of an antagonist, or of a weapon; to secure any thing by means of a clinch. 2. A word used in a double meaning; a pun; an ambiguity; a duplicity of meaning, with identity of expression. [Rare.] Johnson. Here one poor word a hundred clinches makes. Pope. 3. (Naut.) The part of a cable which is fastened to the ring of an anchor; a kind of knot and seizings used to fasten a cable to the ring of an anchor, and the breeching of a gun to the ring-bolts in a ship’s side. Totten.

Clĭnch, n.

noun

n. [From clinch, to bend the fist, hence to form into balls. Cf. Ger. ballen, to clinch the fist and to form into balls.]

(Mining.) The under-clay, or arenaceous shale, lying, in coal-measures, directly below the coal;—called also bind. Buchanan.
One of the hard beds of the lower chalk. Dana.