A society of persons who club together, or form themselves into a knot or lump.
The word was originally applied to persons bound together by a vow. (German, gelübde.) (See Cards, 4 clubs.)
“[1190] was the era of chivalry, . . for bodies of men uniting themselves by a sacred vow, gelubde, which word and thing have passed over to us in a singularly dwindled condition, ‘clubʹ we call it; and the vow … does not rank very high.”—Carlyle: Frederick the Great, vol. i. p 111
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