Other forms: clubs
A club is a group of people who share an interest, and by extension the building they share. A chess club, a book club, a football club. Join a club and you are joining the people, not the room.
A nightclub is where people dance late, usually shortened to just the club. A golf club is the stick you swing, and a club was a heavy stick long before it was a group — the group sense grew out of people clubbing together. Clubs is also the black three-leaved suit in a pack of cards.
1noungroupA group of people who meet because they share an interest, and the place they meet.~94%
“She joined the chess club in September.”
2nounnightA place open late where people dance to music.~2%
“The club does not fill up until midnight.”
3nounstickA heavy stick used as a weapon, or one used to hit a ball in golf.~2%
“He carried his golf clubs to the first tee.”
4verbclubTo beat with a heavy stick.~2%
“The seals were clubbed for their fur.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 11 sentences found in the wild and placed 11 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
The club you join and the club you swing are one word. Old Norse klumba was a cudgel, from a root meaning clump or lump, and a group that clubbed together was originally massed in just that way.
Middle English
clubbe
English, today
club
Built from
From Middle English clubbe. Middle English clubbe, from Old Norse klubba, klumba (“cudgel”), from Proto-Germanic klumpô (“clip, clasp; clump, lump; log, block”). Cognate with English clump, cloud, Latin globus, glomus; and perhaps related to Middle Low German kolve (“bulb”), German Kolben (“butt, bulb, club”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA