clog

noun

1. A type of shoe with an inflexible, often wooden sole sometimes with an open heel.

   “Dutch people rarely wear clogs these days.”

   “[…] as to the poor—just look at them when they come crowding about the church-doors on the occasion of a marriage or a funeral, clattering in clogs; […]”

   “She stomped up the stairs. Her clogs slammed against the pine boards of the staircase and shook the house.”

2. A blockage.

   “The plumber cleared the clog from the drain.”

3. (UK, colloquial)A shoe of any type.

   “I let him in this morning. He lost one of his clogs.”

4. A weight, such as a log or block of wood, attached to a person or animal to hinder motion.

   “Yet as a Dog committed close / For some offence, by chance breaks loose, / And quits his Clog; but all in vain, / He still draws after him his Chain.”

   “A clog of lead was round my feet / A band of pain across my brow;”

5. That which hinders or impedes motion; an encumbrance, restraint, or impediment of any kind.

   “The grand Conſpirator, Abbot of Weſtminster, / With clog of Conſcience, and ſowre Melancholly / Hath yeelded up his body to the graue;”

   “All the ancient, honest, juridical principles and institutions of England, are so many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression.”

   “By the same rule, they must send your mamma her travelling expences, miss; she can't have the clog of a couple of grown daughters at her heels without money in her pocket.”

   “If we were as rich as your uncle, I should feel it to be both a duty and a pleasure to keep an elegant table; but limited means are a sad clog to one’s wishes.”

verb

1. To block or slow passage through (often with 'up').

   “Around 25 million pounds of used Mardi Gras beads are thrown away every year. Several years ago, in 2018, 46 tons of them clogged New Orleans' storm drains after heavy flooding.”

   “Hair is clogging the drainpipe.”

   “The roads are clogged up with traffic.”

2. To encumber or load, especially with something that impedes motion; to hamper.

   “The wings of winds were clogged with ice and snow.”

3. To burden; to trammel; to embarrass; to perplex.

   “The commodities […]are clogged with impositions.”

   “You'll rue the time / That clogs me with this answer.”

4. To enforce a mortgage lender right that prevents a borrower from exercising a right to redeem.

   “1973, Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Doerr, 123 N.J. Super. 530, 544, 303 A.2d 898. For centuries it has been the rule that a mortgagor’s equity of redemption cannot be clogged and that he cannot, as a part of the original mortgage transaction, cut off or surrender his right to redeem. Any agreement which does so is void and unenforceable as against public policy.”

5. (intransitive)To perform a clog dance.

   “And in a burst of Celtic drums and fiddles, a bosomy colleen with a jaunty green hat and suit jacket riverdanced onto the stage, clogging with a surprising degree of expertise, barely restrained breasts jiggling.”