clenching
noun
- act of holding together very tightly
Wiktionary
adj
- Alternative form of clinching (“that settles something definitely”).
“Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truantry, but the recapture of the Hispaniola was a clenching answer, and I hoped that even Captain Smollett would confess I had not lost my time.”
noun
- The act by which something (a fist, a jaw, etc.) is clenched.
“Many of the clenchings [of muscles] were uncoordinated, and one would guess that they occurred more and more as the sleep synchronized.”
verb
- present participle and gerund of clench