1775: clout Oct 24, 2019

'Clout' today has many meanings, including "a heavy blow" and an "influence or power", but a more traditional meaning would have been "to mend a cloth". The origin of this discrepancy is still not totally understood, however the sense of a "heavy blow" does date back to the Middle English. Some may suggest that the sense comes from a connection of 'putting a patch on' to 'hitting hard', but this relation is fairly loose.

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