Forms: 1 clafre, clæfre, clæfra, 3 clouere, 5 cleure, 5–7 claver, 6– clover. (Also 6 Sc. clauir, -yr, 8–9 claver.) [The form clover is very rare bef. 1600 (one example of clouere c. 1265), and did not prevail much bef. 1700; the usual ME. and 16th-c. form was claver. The earliest OE. glossaries have clabre, clafre; late WSax. had clæfre fem. Cf. MLG. klêver, klâver masc., LG. kláver, klêwer, klêber, EFris. klafer, kläfer, klefer, NFris. kliawar m., Du. klaver f., Da. klever, klöver, Norw. klöver, klyver, Sw. klöfwer masc. The vowel relations of some of these are not clear; but it appears certain that the earliest Eng. form was cláƀre, cláfre wk. f.:—OTeut. type klaiƀrôn-, app. a compound having its first element identical with OHG. chlêo, -wes (MHG. klê -wes, modG. klee) masc. ‘clover,’ and its latter part a worn-down form of some unidentified word. The prevalent ME. claver app. represents a form clæfre with shortened vowel (cf. never:—nǽfre), while the current clover represents the OE. cláfre, retained in some dialect, whence it at length spread out and became the standard form.]
1. The common name of the species of Trefoil (Trifolium, N.O. Leguminosæ), esp. T. repens and T. pratense, both largely cultivated for fodder.
α. c. 1000. Ælfric, Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 134/42. Calta, uel trifillon, clæfre.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., I. 172. Þysse wyrte … þe man crision & oðrum naman clæfre nemneð.
a. 1100. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 323/29. Uiola, clæfre. Ibid., 408/36. Fetta, clæfra.
a. 1400[?]. Morte Arth., 3241. The close … With clauer and clereworte clede euene ouer.
c. 1450. Alphita (Anecd. Oxon.), 186/2. Trifolium quando simpliciter ponitur, anglice dicitur cleure.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, XII. Prol. 116. The clavyr, catcluke and the cammamyld.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 26 b. A clauer or threeleued grasse.
1636. G. Sandys, Paraphr. Ps. lxv. (1648), 108. The Desert with sweet Claver fils.
1649. Blithe, Eng. Improv. Impr., xxvi. (1652), 177. There are so many sorts of Claver, as would fil a volume, I shall onely speak of the great Claver, or Trefoyl we fetch from Flaunders.
1672. Grew, Philos. Hist. Plants, § 11. All kinds of Trefoyls, as Melilot, Fœnugreek, and the common Clavers themselves.
1699. Evelyn, Acetaria, 19. Clavers … are us’d in Lenten Pottages.
1794. Burns, Country Lassie, i. While claver blooms white o’er the lea.
[Claver is the form in B. Googe, Lyte, Gerarde, Cotgrave, Surflet & Markham, Bacon, Coles, Parkinson, Salmon.]
β. 1599. Shaks., Hen. V., V. ii. 49. The euen Meade, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled Cowslip, Burnet, and greene Clouer.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xxv. 110. Like the penny-grass, or the pure clover.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 232. Where Nature shall provide Green Grass and fatning Clover for their Fare.
a. 1763. Shenstone, Poems, Wks. 1764, I. 235. In russet robes of clover deep.
1846. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric., II. 31. The effect of coal ashes is most remarkable when applied to clovers growing on sands.
b. With qualifying words, indicating the different species: esp. Red or Meadow Clover (also Broad Clover, CLOVER-GRASS), Trifolium pratense, and White or Dutch Clover, T. repens. Also Alsike C., T. hybridum; Cow Clover, T. medium and T. pratense; Crimson or Carnation C., T. incarnatum; Hare’s-foot C., Trifolium arvense; Hop C., T. procumbens; Strawberry C., T. fragiferum; Trefoil or Zig-Zag C., T. medium; Yellow C., T. procumbens and T. minus.
a. 800. Erfurt Gloss., 250. Calta, rede clabre; 254 Calesta, huitti clabre.
a. 800. Corpus Gloss., 375. Calta, reade clafre; 377 Calcesta, huite clafre.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., II. 312. read clæfre. Ibid., 326. Hwite clæfran wisan.
c. 1265. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 556/33. Trifolium, trifoil, wite clouere.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xxv. 367. Purple Trefoil, Honeysuckle Trefoil, or Red Clover. Ibid. White Trefoil, commonly called Dutch Clover.
1884. E. P. Roe, in Harper’s Mag., July, 247/1. They began with red-top clover.
† c. humorously as a term of endearment.
1500–20. Dunbar, In secreit place, 29. Quod he, ‘My claver, and my curldodie.’
2. Applied in different localities, with qualifying word prefixed, to many plants of the same order, or with similar characters; as Bird’s-foot C., Cat’s C., Lotus corniculatus; Calvary Clover, Medicago Echinus; Heart C., Spotted C., Medicago maculata; Yellow C., Medicago lupulina; Horned C., Snail C., species of Medicago; Bokhara C., Melilotus vulgaris; † Garden C., Melilotus cærulea; Hart’s C., King’s C., Plaister C., Melilotus officinalis; Marsh C., Menyanthes trifoliata; Cuckoo’s C., Gowk’s C., Lady’s C., Sour C., Oxalis acetosella; Thousand-leaved C., Achillea Millefolium; Soola or Maltese C., Hedysarum coronarium. Also in U.S.: Bush C., Lespedeza; Prairie C., Petalostemon; Sweet C., Melilotus.
1548. Turner, Names of Herbes, s.v. Medica, It hath leaues like a clauer and horned cods. Therefore it maye be called in englishe horned Clauer or snail Trifoly. Ibid., 49. Lotus vrbana … it maye be named in english gardine Clauer or gardine Trifoly.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, IV. xxxvii. 496. Turner calleth Lotus vrbana in English, Garden or Sallet Clauer: we may call it sweete Trefoyl, or three leaued grasse.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 565. The good husbandman must be carefull to gather and reserue seed of this snaile clauer.
1626. Bacon, Sylva (1677), § 493. They make it a piece of the wonder, that Garden Claver will hide the Stalk, when the Sun sheweth bright.
1640. Parkinson, Theat. Bot., 720 (Britten & H.). In some places they call it Hart’s Claver, because if it grow where stagges and deere resort, they will greedily feede thereon…. In English wee call it generally King’s Claver as the chiefest of all other three-leaved grasses.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xxv. 368. We have one variety [of Medicago] very common wild, called Heart-Clover from the form of the leaves, which are also generally spotted.
3. Phrase. To live (or be) in clover: ‘to live luxuriously; clover being extremely delicious and fattening to cattle’ (J.).
1710. Brit. Apollo, II. No. 105. 3/1. I liv’d in Clover.
a. 1746. Ogle (J.). Well, Laureat, was the night in clover spent?
a. 1839. Praed, Poems (1864), I. 136. You might have lived your day in clover.
1856. R. Vaughan, Mystics (1860), II. VIII. ix. 102. He has been sometimes in clover as a travelling tutor, sometimes he has slept and fared hard.
4. attrib. and Comb., as clover-bloom, -blossom, -blow, -farm, -flower, -hay, -head, -hill, -leaf, -seed; clover-dodder, Cuscuta Trifolii; clover-hay worm, the larva of a small moth, Asopia costalis, very destructive to clover-hay in North America; clover-huller, -sheller, -thrasher, machines for separating clover-seed from the hulls; clover-ley, -lay (see quots.); clover-sick a., (of land) that has been too continuously kept under clover and that will no longer grow or support it; clover-weevil, a small weevil, Apion apricans, which feeds on the seeds of clover. Also CLOVER-GRASS.
1845. Longf., Gleam Sunshine, vi. The *clover-blossoms in the grass.
1867. Emerson, May-Day, etc. Wks. (Bohn), III. 411. Columbine and *clover-blow. Ibid. (1847), Poems, Woodnotes, I. 422. It smells like a *clover-farm.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xv. 241. The Crow-flower, and thereby the *Clouer-flower they stick.
1847. Emerson, Poems, Monadnoc, Wks. (Bohn), I. 435. With *cloverheads the swamp adorn.
1830. Tennyson, Sea-Fairies. Thick with white bells the *clover-hill swells.
1796. Hull Advertiser, 16 July, 1/4. The *clover-ley wheats have … the advantage of the fallowed.
1805. Forsyth, Beauties Scotl., I. 258. To plough down clover ley in a pretty rough state as a most advantageous preparation for wheat.
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 144. Sown after potatoes and the clover-lays.
1888. Elworthy, W. Somerset Word-bk., Clover-lay, a field in which there has been a crop of clover, but which is now ready to be ploughed for some other crop.
1856. Farmer’s Mag., Jan., 61. *Clover-sheller, with attached dressing apparatus.
