A lump or clod of earth or clay; a piece of ground or turf.
From Middle English clote or cloit, possibly related to Old English and Germanic roots meaning 'lump' or 'mass.' The word may connect to 'clot' (a lump or mass) or dialect words for sticky clay.
This is a wonderfully obsolete word—farmers once described their work in terms of cloits and clods, but as agriculture industrialized and urbanized, the vocabulary for describing earth by touch and feel largely disappeared from English.
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