Other forms: clinking
To clink is to make a light ringing sound of glass or metal. Clink glasses, the clink of keys, glasses clinked.
It is the small bright noise of two hard things touching, and clinking glasses is the standard gesture of a toast — a custom with several competing origin stories, none of them well evidenced. As a noun, the clink is also old slang for prison, from the Clink, a real gaol in Southwark that gave its name to all the others.
1verbclinkTo make a light ringing sound of glass or metal.
“The ice clinked in her glass as she walked across the room.”
2nounprisonPrison, in old slang.
“If you get caught, you'll end up in the clink!”
clink is a light ringing sound.
Middle English clinken comes from Old English and a Germanic root meaning to sound, related to German klingen. The prison sense comes from the Clink in Southwark, which was a real place.
Proto-Germanic
*klinganą — to sound
Old English
*clincan
Middle English
clinken
English, today
clink
Built from
From Middle English clinken, from Old English clincan (compare clynnan, clynian (“to sound; resound”)), from Proto-Germanic klinganą (“to sound”). Cognates include Middle Dutch klinken and German klingen. Related to a doublet of cling#Etymology 2 and clang. May be further related to call. Perhaps of onomatopoeic origin, as metal against metal.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire