Dictionary

clangorous en · ADJ

Etymology

Etymology tree English clangor Proto-Indo-European *h₃ed- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *h₃édosder.? Proto-Italic *-ŏ̄dsos? Old Latin -ōssus Latin -ōsus Old French -usbor. Middle English -ous English -ous English clangorous From clangor + -ous.

Meanings

1. Making a clangor.
   • Music lovers have long discerned a splendid aural feast in the sounds of the gamelan. Emanating perpetually from communities all over the island of Bali, its sonorities sail over the ricefields on clear nights, showering the air with brilliant cascades of metallic sound, lonely whispering melodies, grandiose and clangorous marches, virtuosic rhythms, and breathtaking crescendos. 1998, Michael Tenzer, chapter 1, in Balinese Music, Berkeley: Periplus Editions, page 11:
   • No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than—as if a shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of silver—I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous, yet apparently muffled, reverberation. 1839, Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher:
   • The air was full of sound, a deafening and confusing conflict of noises—the clangorous din of the Martians, the crash of falling houses, the thud of trees, fences, sheds flashing into flame, and the crackling and roaring of fire. 1898, H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, Book One, Chapter Twelve:
   • Who would have thought that the clangorous Noise of a Smith’s Hammers should have given the first rise to Musick? 1712 March 24, Joseph Addison, The Spectator, volume V, number 334:

Forms

Deriveds

clangorousness · clangorously