From Middle English clinken, from Old English *clincan (compare clynnan, clynian (“to sound; resound”)), from Proto-Germanic *klinganą (“to sound”).
Cognates include Middle Dutch klinken and German klingen. Related to cling (sound) and clang. May be further related to call.
Perhaps of onomatopoeic origin, as metal against metal.
Meanings
(onomatopoeic) The sound of metal on metal, or glass on glass.
1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life Chapter V
When Frere had come down, an hour before, the prisoners were all snugly between their blankets. They were not so now; though, at the first clink of the bolts, they would be back again in their old positions, to all appearances sound asleep.
You could hear the clink of the glasses from the next room.
Stress cracks produced in metal ingots as they cool after being cast.
From Middle English clinken, from Old English *clincan (compare clynnan, clynian (“to sound; resound”)), from Proto-Germanic *klinganą (“to sound”).
Cognates include Middle Dutch klinken and German klingen. Related to cling (sound) and clang. May be further related to call.
Perhaps of onomatopoeic origin, as metal against metal.
Meanings
(ambitransitive) To make a clinking sound; to make a sound of metal on metal or glass on glass; to strike materials such as metal or glass against one another.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange, / Unlifted was the clinking latch, / Weeded and worn the ancient thatch / upon the lonely moated grange. 1830 June, Alfred Tennyson, “Mariana”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, stanza I, page 10:
On the other side: the rich, beautiful tapestry of WASP culture that constituted Levis's life—friends playing horseshoes at backyard cocktail parties, where girls swanned in chaise longues, clinking their gin and tonics. 2022, Ling Ma, “G”, in Bliss Montage, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN:
Never you mind if I / Don't tell strangers passing by / If I don't brag / If I don't brag or boast / Clink my glass and say a toast / About my love for you / How it runs so deep and true 1970, Four Tops, “Still Water (Love)”, in Still Waters Run Deep:
The hammers clinked on the stone all night.
Driftwood chimes made by Deirdre clinked their music in the breeze, and neatly tended beds—kept so by me—brimmed with flowers and herbs in the surrounding garden. 2021, Xan van Rooyen, By the Blood of Rowans, →ISBN: