CLINCH. A pun or quibble. To clinch, or to clinch the nail; to confirm an improbable story by another: as, A man swore he drove a tenpenny nail through the moon; a bystander said it was true, for he was on the other side and clinched it.
A selection from Francis Grose’s “Dictionary Of The Vulgar Tongue” (1785)
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For those not in the know, like me: tenpenny nail is a 3” nail, clinching a nail means curving the part that went through the material and hammering it back.