cling

klɪŋ

WordNet

In a forest, a man is hunted by a panther, desperate to cling to a bust of Pan. Illustration to the story 'The promise' from 'Fables for the Dutch youth'.

(v) cling
hold on tightly or tenaciously "hang on to your father's hands","The child clung to his mother's apron"
(v) cling
come or be in close contact with; stick or hold together and resist separation "The dress clings to her body","The label stuck to the box","The sushi rice grains cohere"
(v) cling
to remain emotionally or intellectually attached "He clings to the idea that she might still love him."
(n) cling
fruit (especially peach) whose flesh adheres strongly to the pit

Illustrations

Silver medal. Obverse: man's chest piece with laurel wreath inside. Reverse: fugitive Philip clings to a Jesuit inside inscription; cut-off: inscription

A naked woman sitting, clinging to a tree.

Olwene, a young Celtic dressed woman, wanders desperately in a forest. She is clinging to some rocks. Illustration for the fifth song of the epic praise poem Aeddon.

Each trophy consists of six putti that cling to a ribbon tied to a ring.

Odysseus manages to save himself from the sea monster Charybdis in the background left by clinging to a fig tree. In the foreground, Odysseus is received by Calypso. Mercury descends from Olympus to request Calypso to let Odysseus go. In the foreground, Odysseus is building a raft.

A woman in undergarments is jumped from behind by Death, who clings to her waist.

Adonis, with two hunting dogs, says goodbye to a naked Venus who clings to him and tries to prevent him from hunting. Page 39 recto from a sketchbook with 63 sheets.

A young couple clinging to each other in a landscape during a thunderstorm. Lightnings in the sky. Bottom right: bl. 26.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

Cling
Adherence; attachment; devotion. "A more tenacious cling to worldly respects."
Cling
To cause to adhere to, especially by twining round or embracing. "I clung legs as close to his side as I could."

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

cling
To adhere closely; be attached; stick: as, a wet garment clings to the limbs.
cling
To hold fast, especially by the hands or by coiling round or embracing, or, figuratively, by refusing to abandon or give up.
cling
To rush with violence.
cling
To wither; shrivel.
cling
To cause to adhere closely; apply firmly and closely.
cling
To consume; waste to leanness; shrivel.
(n) cling
Adherence; attachment; the act of holding fast; embrace.
(n) cling
A bunch; a cluster; an aggregation of several things that cling together.
(n) cling
A dysentery or bloody flux of sheep: a frequently fatal inflammation of the large intestine of sheep, accompanied with fever and fluid discharges from the bowels.
(n) cling
In horticulture, a peach, nectarine, or apricot in which the flesh adheres strongly to the stone; a clingstone.

Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary

(v.i) Cling
kling to adhere or stick close by winding round: to adhere in interest or affection: to remain by an opinion: of wood, to shrink
(v.t) Cling
to attach: to shrivel:—pa.t. and pa.p. clung
(n) Cling
adherence

Quotations

Churchgoers are like coals in a fire. When they cling together, they keep the flame aglow; when they separate, they die out.

Billy Graham

There is nothing to which men cling more tenaciously than the privileges of class.

Leonard Sidney Woolf

The fly that touches honey cannot use it's wings; so too the soul that clings to spiritual sweetness ruins it's freedom and hinders contemplation.

Ghose Aurobindo

A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses.

Proverb

Fragrance clings to the hand that gives the rose.

Source Unknown

We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.

William James

Idioms

Cling to hope - If people cling to hope, they continue to hope though the chances of success are very small.

Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary AS. clingan, to adhere, to wither; akin to Dan. klynge, to cluster, crowd. Cf. Clump

Usage in the news

California among few states clinging to pen as cursive writing is erased from curriculum. foxnews.com

Dressed in a royal blue dress that hugs her 5-foot-11 form with as much veracity as a scared 3-year-old clinging to a parent, Adrianne Palicki looks like she is ready to make her way down any fashion runway. hispanicbusiness.com

Democratic challenger Rick Nolan clings to the slimmest of leads, 46% to 45% over Republican incumbent Chip Cravaack. dio.com

Von Pollaro is not a painter, graphic artist or fashion designer, but a young florist who is trying to make her mark in a town where public — and private — holiday decorations so often cling to the tra ditional look like fake snow to holly. ashingtonpost.com

Your coworker's cologne, an overly air-freshened car, that waft of smoke clinging to a stranger's coat -- for most of us, those are just temporary annoyances. ktk985.com

Von Pollaro is not a painter, graphic artist or fashion designer , but a young florist who is trying to make her mark in a town where public — and private — holiday decorations so often cling to the tra ditional look like fake snow to holly. ashingtonpost.com

Politics People Still Clinging Desperately To The Idea That Saucedo-Mercer Has A Chance. tucsonweekly.com

Gay scouts and scout leaders will have to remain in the shadows for now due to the Boy Scouts of America's decision Tuesday to cling to its unenlightened policy of barring openly gay members and scoutmasters. philly.com

Why we cling to faded index cards in a disposable culture. online.wsj.com

Tuffy, found clinging to the engine compartment of a truck after going for a 30-minute ride on the freeway, is adjusting to life in her new home. sfgate.com

In this frame grab image taken from WCBS-TV, survivors cling to the bottom of a helicopter after it inverted following a crash in the East River in New York, Tuesday. herald-mail.com

President Obama clings to a four-point lead over Republican Mitt Romney in Virginia as both sides ramp up campaigns in the crucial battleground state. ashingtonpost.com

4, 2012) Hard knocks both ways, the sun beating back the shade, clinging to its steamy ways, the other clawing its darkling way to the fore. northcoastjournal.com

Are we clinging to failed strategies. cbsnews.com

The glut of video game sequels is starting to make game companies seem as if they're clinging to old ideas. columbiadailyherald.com

Usage in scientific papers

Let us cling to the hope that something will turn up.
Concluding Remarks on New Cosmological Data and the Values of the Fundamental Parameters

Metals should cling to galaxies, should they not? Well do they? Gradients there certainly are, with the inner parts of large galaxies more metal rich than the outskirts (Vorobyov 2006, which happens to concern the Milky Way).
Astrophysics in 2006

Metals cling to galaxies more ﬁrmly than the baryons do for Scannadico et al. (2006) and Simcoe et al. (2006), but less so for Pieri et al. (2006) and Vladilo and Peroux (2005).
Astrophysics in 2006

Kapferer et al. (2006) endorse situational ethics, because mergers can erase previous clinging behavior.
Astrophysics in 2006

The green circle went to Polaris (Vsenko et al. 2005), which is clinging to its membership in the instability strip on its 3rd or 5th crossing (based on N/(C+O) about three times solar).
Astrophysics in 2006

Usage in literature

Babs was clinging to him now. "Beyond the Vanishing Point" by Raymond King Cummings

Get through the window, put your arms about my neck, cling for your life, and trust to Frank Merriwell and Providence. "Frank Merriwell's Bravery" by Burt L. Standish

She clings to her g's, too, in spite of local tradition. "Janet of the Dunes" by Harriet T. Comstock

They are a wonderfully level-headed group, these telephone girls, wonderfully unlike their clinging-vine Victorian grandmothers. "The Book of Business Etiquette" by Nella Henney

He could just distinguish Voules and Lucas clinging to the bulwarks a short distance from him. "The Rival Crusoes" by W.H.G. Kingston

Helen was too breathless to speak, but he knew, by her clinging hold, that she sought protection from some real or imaginary danger. "Helen and Arthur" by Caroline Lee Hentz

Men like to see a girl sweet, clinging, pliant. "The Lady of the Basement Flat" by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

I turned round and fired, but having to cling to the tree, I had great difficulty in taking aim. "In the Wilds of Africa" by W.H.G. Kingston

We saw the two, the father holding on his son clinging to a spar. "The Story of Nelson" by W.H.G. Kingston

Then he could cling easily to the hull, walk all over it if he chose to, with the aid of his boots and hand-pads. "Gold in the Sky" by Alan Edward Nourse

Usage in poetry

Insufficient left alone,
We are clinging round Thy throne,
And while there Thy fulness own,
Thou guidest;

"Thou Guidest" by Martin Farquhar Tupper

And yet — a wakeful glory
Clings round you as you doze;
One living lyric story
Makes music of your prose.

"The Poet's Town" by John Gneisenau Neihardt

And yet — a wakeful glory
Clings round you as you doze;
One living, lyric story
Makes music of your prose!

"The Poet's Town" by John Gneisenau Neihardt

O hide me in Thy love, secure
From this earth-clinging meanness.
Lave my uncleanness
In Thy compassionating love!

"O Hide Me In Thy Love" by John Freeman

Under their feet in the grasses
My clinging magic runs.
They shall return as strangers.
They shall remain as sons.

"The Recall" by Rudyard Kipling

On my finger is a ring,
Crimson rubies, glistening.
He that parts me from my love,--
Satan to his soul shall cling.

"Charm Verses" by Anonymous European