Kling

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. An old-fashioned past form of the verb meaning to hold tightly onto something or stick closely to it
2. The archaic simple past of cling, used to describe having gripped or adhered to a surface or person in earlier English
3. A dated preterite of the verb cling, showing that someone once held fast to or stayed close against something

Etymology: "Kling" as a verb meaning to hold on tightly comes from Old English "clingan," meaning to shrivel or contract, and it is closely related to "cling." The two forms are doublets that split apart long ago: "cling" kept the sense of adhering or clinging, while "kling" survived mainly in dialect and older writing, where it came to mean to shrivel or wither, a sense that dates back to the same root. The shift from shrinking to gripping is the surprising part. The idea seems to be that a thing which contracts or tightens around something else ends up holding it firmly, so the sense of tightness moved from the object shrinking to the act of clutching. Dictionaries record the verb's modern "hold tightly" sense in English, and the form is most often met in literary and dialect contexts rather than everyday speech.