Thick masses of coagulated blood or other liquid, or the process of forming such masses. Can also refer to stupid people in British slang.
From Old English clott meaning 'a lump or ball,' related to Dutch kloot and German klotz. The medical sense developed from the basic meaning of a thick mass, while the slang meaning emerged in British English in the early 20th century.
Blood clotting is one of the body's most elegant emergency responses - thousands of proteins work together in a cascade to plug holes in seconds. The word's journey from describing any lump to becoming crucial medical terminology shows how language adapts to scientific understanding.
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