Clinch

How to spell clinch

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce clinch

What does clinch mean?

1. verbTo secure or settle something conclusively, such as a deal, victory, or agreement.
2. nounA tight grappling embrace, especially when two boxers hold each other at close range.

Clinch in a sentence

• verb

  A late goal helped the team clinch the championship.

• noun

  The referee broke up the clinch before the boxers traded punches.

• verb

  A generous discount was enough to clinch the sale.

• noun

  The tired fighter kept retreating into a clinch to recover.

Where does clinch come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Clinch is a variant of the older verb clench, which traces back to the Old English beclencan, meaning to hold fast or make something cling. That root belongs to the same Germanic family as cling, and the underlying idea is always one of gripping tightly so that something will not come loose. In the 1500s the spelling clinch split off and gathered the practical sense of bending over the protruding end of a driven nail or bolt so that it could not pull out, a literal way of making a fastening secure. From that hands-on meaning the figurative sense grew naturally: to clinch a deal or an argument is to fasten it down so firmly that nothing can undo it. The boxing sense, where two fighters grapple at close quarters, comes from the same notion of two people locked tightly together.

How the word is built

• clinch (a variant of clench, from Old English clenc-: to hold fast)