Other forms: clinched, clinching, clinches
To clinch is to settle a deal or a victory beyond doubt. The last thing needed, and it is done.
Business and sport use it constantly, so clinching a deal, clinching a contract and clinching the title are all standard. There is a common noun phrase in the clincher, meaning the argument or fact that finally decides a matter. Boxing has a completely different sense, since a clinch is when two fighters hold each other to stop the punching, and from that comes the romantic sense of two people embracing.
16th-century alteration of clench.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 11 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word