CLAN. A family's tribe or brotherhood; a word much used in Scotland. The head of the clan; the chief: an allusion to a story of a Scotchman, who, when a very large louse crept down his arm, put him back again, saying he was the head of the clan, and that, if injured, all the rest would resent it. CLANK. A silver tankard. CANT. CLANK NAPPER. A silver tankard stealer. See RUM BUBBER. CLANKER. A great lie. CLAP. A venereal taint. He went out by Had'em, and came round by Clapham home; i.e. he went out a wenching, and got a clap. CLAP ON THE SHOULDER. An arrest for debt; whence a bum bailiff is called a shoulder-clapper. CLAPPER. The tongue of a bell, and figuratively of a man or woman. CLAPPER CLAW. To scold, to abuse, or claw off with the tongue. CLAPPERDOGEON. A beggar born. CANT. CLARET. French red wine; figuratively, blood. I tapped his claret; I broke his head, and made the blood run. Claret-faced; red-faced. CLAWED OFF. Severely beaten or whipped; also smartly poxed or clapped. CLEAR. Very drunk. The cull is clear, let's bite him; the fellow is very drunk, let's cheat him. CANT. CLEAVER. One that will cleave; used of a forward or wanton woman. CLEAN. Expert; clever. Amongst the knuckling coves he is reckoned very clean; he is considered very expert as a pickpocket. CLERKED. Soothed, funned, imposed on. The cull will not be clerked; i.e. the fellow will not be imposed on by fair words. CLEYMES. Artificial sores, made by beggars to excite charity. CLICK. A blow. A click in the muns; a blow or knock in the face. CANT. TO CLICK. To snatch. To click a nab; to snatch a hat. CANT. CLICKER. A salesman's servant; also, one who proportions out the different shares of the booty among thieves. CLICKET. Copulation of foxes; and thence used, in a canting sense, for that of men and women: as, The cull and the mort are at clicket in the dyke; the man and woman are copulating in the ditch. CLIMB. To climb the three trees with a ladder; to ascend the gallows. CLINCH. A pun or quibble. To clinch, or to clinch the nail; to confirm an improbable story by another: as, A man swore he drove a tenpenny nail through the moon; a bystander said it was true, for he was on the other side and clinched it. CLINK. A place in the Borough of Southwark, formerly privileged from arrests; and inhabited by lawless vagabonds of every denomination, called, from the place of their residence, clinkers. Also a gaol, from the clinking of the prisoners' chains or fetters: he is gone to clink. CLINKERS. A kind of small Dutch bricks; also irons worn by prisoners; a crafty fellow. TO CLIP. To hug or embrace: to clip and cling. To clip the coin; to diminish the current coin. To clip the king's English; to be unable to speak plain through drunkenness. CLOAK TWITCHERS. Rogues who lurk about the entrances into dark alleys, and bye-lanes, to snatch cloaks from the shoulders of passengers.