noun

• (informal) Influence or effectiveness, especially political.
  "Having relinquished his clout in City Council to run for a place on the county board, and having lost stature by reason of his failure to win the presidency, Duffy was in no position to seek the party chairmanship for himself"
• (baseball, informal) A home run.
  "'... allowed Boston to score all of its runs on homers, including a pair of clouts by Jacoby Ellsbury ...'"
• (archery) The center of the butt at which archers shoot; probably once a piece of white cloth or a nail head.
  "For kings are clouts that euery man ſhoots at, Our Crowne the pin that thouſands ſeeke to cleaue."
• (regional, dated) A swaddling cloth.
  "When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg’s ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two."