CLUB, n.

1. Properly, a stick or piece of wood, with one end thicker and heavier than the other, and no larger than can be wielded with the hand.
2. A thick heavy stick, that may be managed with the hand, and used for beating, or defense. In early ages, a club was a principal instrument of war and death; a fact remarkably perpetuated in the accounts which history relates of the achievements of Hercules with his club. Plin. lib. 7, cap. 56. This use of the club was the origin of the scepter, as a badge of royalty.
3. The name of one of the suits of cards; so named from its figure.
4. A collection or assembly of men; usually a select number of friends met for social or literary purposes. Any small private meeting of persons. – Dryden.
5. A collection of expenses; the expenses of a company, or unequal expenses of individuals, united for the purpose of finding the average or proportion of each individual. Hence the share of each individual in joint expenditure is called his club, that is, his proportion of a club, or joint charge.
6. Contribution; joint charge. – Hudibras. Club of Hercules. The story of Hercules with his club originated in the use of clubs, as weapons of war and other achievements, among rude nations, before the invention of other instruments and the use of iron. Hence striking, beating, was the first mode of killing; and hence smite and slay, properly signifying to strike, came to signify to kill. Hercules was the leader of a savage band, who wielded the heaviest club; and hence the club was the origin of the scepter, which is in the shape of a club, coinciding with Latin scipio. Any bold warrior at the head of a predatory band was a Hercules.

1. To join, as a number of individuals, to the same end; to contribute separate powers to one end, purpose or effect. Till grosser atoms, tumbling in the stream Of fancy, madly met, and clubbed into a dream. – Dryden.
2. To pay an equal proportion of a common reckoning or charge.

1. To unite different sums of expense, in a common sum or collection, to find the average, that each contributor may pay an equal share. – Pope.
2. In common parlance, to raise or turn uppermost the breech or club of a musket; as, the soldiers clubbed their muskets.

1. A heavy staff of wood, usually tapering, and wielded with the hand; a weapon; a cudgel.
   
   

   But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs;
   Rome and her rats are at the point of battle.
   Shak.

2. To beat with a club.
3. To form a club; to combine for the promotion of some common object; to unite.
   
   

   Till grosser atoms, tumbling in the stream
   Of fancy, madly met, and clubbed into a dream.
   Dryden.

4. Any card of the suit of cards having a figure like the trefoil or clover leaf. (pl.) The suit of cards having such figure.
5. To throw, or allow to fall, into confusion.
   
   

   To club a battalion implies a temporary inability in the commanding officer to restore any given body of men to their natural front in line or column.
   Farrow.

6. To pay on equal or proportionate share of a common charge or expense; to pay for something by contribution.
   
   

   The owl, the raven, and the bat,
   Clubbed for a feather to his hat.
   Swift.

7. An association of persons for the promotion of some common object, as literature, science, politics, good fellowship, etc.; esp. an association supported by equal assessments or contributions of the members.
   
   

   They talked
   At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics.
   Tennyson.

   He [Goldsmith] was one of the nine original members of that celebrated fraternity which has sometimes been called the Literary Club, but which has always disclaimed that epithet, and still glories in the simple name of the Club.
   Macaulay.

8. To unite, or contribute, for the accomplishment of a common end] as, to club exertions.
9. To drift in a current with an anchor out.
10. A joint charge of expense, or any person's share of it; a contribution to a common fund.
    
    

    They laid down the club.
    L'Estrange.

    We dined at a French house, but paid ten shillings for our part of the club.
    Pepys.

    Club law, government by violence; lynch law; anarchy. Addison. -

    Club moss (Bot.), an evergreen mosslike plant, much used in winter decoration. The best know species is Lycopodium clavatum, but other Lycopodia are often called by this name. The spores form a highly inflammable powder. -- Club root (Bot.), a disease of cabbages, by which the roots become distorted and the heads spoiled. -- Club topsail (Naut.), a kind of gaff topsail, used mostly by yachts having a fore-and-aft rig. It has a short "club" or "jack yard" to increase its spread.

11. To raise, or defray, by a proportional assesment; as, to club the expense.
    
    

    To club a musket (Mil.), to turn the breach uppermost, so as to use it as a club.