Definition of "clog"

[…] as to the poor—just look at them when they come crowding about the church doors on the occasion of a marriage or a funeral, clattering in clogs;

1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter 15, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […]

She stomped up the stairs. Her clogs slammed against the pine boards of the staircase and shook the house.

2002, Alice Sebold, chapter 5, in The Lovely Bones‎, Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, page 92

I let him in this morning. He lost one of his clogs.

1987, Bruce Robinson, Withnail and I, spoken by Withnail

Yet as a Dog committed close / For some offence, by chance breaks loose, / And quits his Clog; but all in vain, / He still draws after him his Chain.

1663, [Samuel Butler], “The Second Part of Hudibras”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905, canto 3

A clog of lead was round my feet / A band of pain across my brow;

1855, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Letters”, in Maud, and Other Poems‎, London: Edward Moxon, page 115

The grand Conſpirator, Abbot of Weſtminster, / With clog of Conſcience, and ſowre Melancholly / Hath yeelded up his body to the graue;

1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene vi], page 45

All the ancient, honest, juridical principles and institutions of England, are so many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression.

1777, Edmund Burke, A Letter from Edmund Burke: Esq; one of the representatives in Parliament for the city of Bristol, to John Farr and John Harris, Esqrs. sheriffs of that city, on the Affairs of America‎, London: J. Dodsley, page 8

By the same rule, they must send your mamma her travelling expences, miss; she can't have the clog of a couple of grown daughters at her heels without money in her pocket.

1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter LIV, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], pages 69–70

If we were as rich as your uncle, I should feel it to be both a duty and a pleasure to keep an elegant table; but limited means are a sad clog to one’s wishes.

1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, chapter 56, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1866

The wings of winds were clogged with ice and snow.

1717, John Dryden [et al.], “(please specify |book=I to XV)”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]

The commodities […] are clogged with impositions.

1705, J[oseph] Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]

You'll rue the time / That clogs me with this answer.

c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene vi]

For centuries it has been the rule that a mortgagor’s equity of redemption cannot be clogged and that he cannot, as a part of the original mortgage transaction, cut off or surrender his right to redeem. Any agreement which does so is void and unenforceable [sic] as against public policy.

1973, Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Doerr, 123 N.J. Super. 530, 544, 303 A.2d 898.

And in a burst of Celtic drums and fiddles, a bosomy colleen with a jaunty green hat and suit jacket riverdanced onto the stage, clogging with a surprising degree of expertise, barely restrained breasts jiggling.

2014, Jeff Abbott, Cut and Run