Noun

click (plural clicks)Category:English lemmas#CLICKCategory:English nouns#CLICKCategory:English countable nouns#CLICKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CLICKCategory:Pages with entries#CLICKCategory:Pages with 5 entries#CLICK

1. A brief, sharp, not particularly loud, relatively high-pitched sound produced by the impact of something small and hard against something hard, such as by the operation of a switch, a lock, or a latch.

   As I turned the key, the lock gave a click and the door opened.Category:English terms with usage examples#CLICK

   • 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC:

     There was a click in the front sitting-room. Mr. Pearce had extinguished the lamp.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

2. (BritishCategory:British English#CLICK) The act of snapping one's fingers.
3. (phoneticsCategory:en:Phonetics#CLICK) An ingressive sound made by coarticulating a velar or uvular closure with another closure.

   Synonym: click consonant

   tsk is a click in English.Category:English terms with usage examples#CLICK

4. The sound made by a dolphin.
5. The act of operating a switch, etc., so that it clicks.
6. (graphical user interfaceCategory:en:Graphical user interface#CLICK) The act of pressing a button on a computer mouse or similar input device, both as a physical act and a reaction in the software.
7. (by extension) A single instance of content on the Internet being accessed.
   • 2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly‎, volume 189, number 2, page 48:

     The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […] and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention. Partly, this is a result of how online advertising has traditionally worked: advertisers pay for clicks, and a click is a click, however it's obtained.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

   • 2013 July 26, Charles Arthur, “Porn sites get more internet traffic in UK than social networks or shopping”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     Internet traffic to legal pornography sites in the UK comprised 8.5% of all "clicks" on web pages in June – exceeding those for shopping, news, business or social networks, according to new data obtained exclusively by the Guardian.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

8. A pawl or similar catch.
   • 1943, Chilton's Jewelers' Circular:

     A wheel, with teeth in which a click or pawl engages to prevent backward motion; or the same with addition of another click through which power is imparted at intervals to move the wheel.

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9. (UKCategory:British English#CLICK, slangCategory:English slang#CLICK, obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#CLICK) A knock or blow.
   • 1808, Richard Graves, The Spiritual Quixote, page 127:

     This roused the tinker's choler, already provoked at Tugwell's amorous freedom with his doxy, and he gave him a click in the mazard. Tugwell had not been used tamely to receive a kick or a cuff; he, therefore, gave the tinker a rejoinder, […]

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10. A limb contortion at the joint, part of vogue dancing.
11. (musicCategory:en:Music#CLICK, informalCategory:English informal terms#CLICK) A click track.
    • 2013, “Giorgio by Moroder”, in Giorgio Moroder (lyrics), Random Access Memories, performed by Daft Punk:

      But I knew I needed a click, so we put a click on the 24-track, which then was synced to the Moog Modular.

      Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

Verb

click (third-person singular simple present clicks, present participle clicking, simple past and past participle clicked)Category:English lemmas#CLICKCategory:English verbs#CLICKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CLICKCategory:Pages with entries#CLICKCategory:Pages with 5 entries#CLICK

1. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#CLICK) To cause to make a click; to operate (a switch, etc) so that it makes a click.
   • 1603 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, Seianus His Fall, London: […] G[eorge] Elld, for Thomas Thorpe, published 1605, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     [Jove] clicked all his marble thumbs.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter L, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     She clicked back the bolt which held the window sash.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

   • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “Song.—The Owl.”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, stanza 2, page 20:

     When merry milkmaids click the latch, / And rarely smells the new-mown hay, / […] / Alone and warming his five wits, / The white owl in the belfry sits.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

   • 1918, The Cosmopolitan, volume 66, page 61:

     His voice rose in a clacking chatter; his long whip curled over the backs of the dogs, and, eager for the thrill of the trail, the malemiuts leaped out in a straight tawny line, whimpering and whining and clicking their jaws […]

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   • 1956, Ethel Anderson, At Parramatta, published 1985, page 60:

     Dan clicked his tongue.

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2. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#CLICK) To emit a click.
   • 1929, Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed‎:

     Surely that picture will be fixed for ever, for I heard the cameras clicking round me like crickets in a field.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

3. (BritishCategory:British English#CLICK) To snap one's fingers.
4. (computingCategory:en:Computing#CLICK) To press and release (a button on a computer mouse).
5. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#CLICK, graphical user interfaceCategory:en:Graphical user interface#CLICK) To select a software item using, usually, but not always, the pressing of a mouse button.
6. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#CLICK, computingCategory:en:Computing#CLICK, advertisingCategory:en:Advertising#CLICK) To visit (a website).

   Visit a location, call, or click www.example.com.Category:English terms with usage examples#CLICK

7. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#CLICK, graphical user interfaceCategory:en:Graphical user interface#CLICK) To navigate by clicking a mouse button.

   I soon grew bored and clicked away from the site.Category:English terms with usage examples#CLICK

   From the home page, click through to the Products section.Category:English terms with usage examples#CLICK

8. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#CLICK) To make sense suddenly.

   Then it clicked—I had been going the wrong way all that time.Category:English terms with usage examples#CLICK

9. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#CLICK) To get along well.

   When we met at the party, we just clicked and we’ve been best friends ever since.Category:English terms with usage examples#CLICK

   • 1918 [1915], Thomas Burke, Nights in London‎, New York: Henry Holt and Company, page 75:

     After tea, the bright boys wash, clean their boots, and change into their “second-best” attire, and stroll forth […] ; sometimes to saunter, in company with others, up and down that parade until they “click” with one of the “birds.”

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

10. (datedCategory:English dated terms#CLICK, intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#CLICK) To tick.
    • 1770, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, a Poem, London: […] W[illiam] Griffin, […], →OCLC:

      the varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door

      Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

11. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#CLICK, IndiaCategory:Indian English#CLICK) To take (a photograph) with a camera.
    • 2014, Dhisti Desai, Innocent Desire, page 107:

      Brad immediately took out his Iphone^[sic] and clicked a picture of the plant and posted it up on Google and clicked search.

      Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

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    • 2017, Pankaj Upadhyay, Homecoming:

      They clicked some pictures outside his sea facing bungalow and left dejected again.

      Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

12. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#CLICK, IndiaCategory:Indian English#CLICK) To achieve success in one's career or a breakthrough, often the first time.
13. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#CLICK, IndiaCategory:Indian English#CLICK) Of a film, to be successful at the box office.

Interjection

clickCategory:English lemmas#CLICKCategory:English interjections#CLICKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CLICKCategory:Pages with entries#CLICKCategory:Pages with 5 entries#CLICK

1. The sound of a click.

   Click! The door opened.Category:English terms with usage examples#CLICK

Derived terms

Related terms

• cliché

See also

• ejective
• tsk, tsk tsk
• tut, tut tut

Noun

click (plural clicks)Category:English lemmas#CLICKCategory:English nouns#CLICKCategory:English countable nouns#CLICKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CLICKCategory:Pages with entries#CLICKCategory:Pages with 5 entries#CLICK

1. Alternative spelling of klick (“kilometers; kilometers per hour”).

Noun

click (plural clicks)Category:English lemmas#CLICKCategory:English nouns#CLICKCategory:English countable nouns#CLICKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CLICKCategory:Pages with entries#CLICKCategory:Pages with 5 entries#CLICK

1. A detent, pawl, or ratchet, such as that which catches the cogs of a ratchet wheel to prevent backward motion.
2. (UKCategory:British English#CLICK, dialectCategory:English dialectal terms#CLICK) The latch of a door.

Verb

click (third-person singular simple present clicks, present participle clicking, simple past and past participle clicked)Category:English lemmas#CLICKCategory:English verbs#CLICKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CLICKCategory:Pages with entries#CLICKCategory:Pages with 5 entries#CLICK

1. (obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#CLICK) To snatch.
   • 1716, Thomas Ward, England's Reformation:

     ‘I take 'em to prevent abuses,’ Cants he, and then the Crucifix And Chalice from the Altar clicks.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLICK

Noun

click (plural clicks)Category:English lemmas#CLICKCategory:English nouns#CLICKCategory:English countable nouns#CLICKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CLICKCategory:Pages with entries#CLICKCategory:Pages with 5 entries#CLICK

1. (wrestlingCategory:en:Wrestling#CLICK) A kind of throw.

   inside click; outside click; cross clickCategory:English terms with usage examples#CLICK

References

• John Camden Hotten (1873), The Slang Dictionary

Noun

clickCategory:English non-lemma forms#CLICKCategory:English misspellings#CLICKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CLICKCategory:Pages with entries#CLICKCategory:Pages with 5 entries#CLICK

1. (USCategory:American English#CLICK) Misspelling of cliqueCategory:English misspellings#CLICK.

Verb

clickCategory:English non-lemma forms#CLICKCategory:English misspellings#CLICKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CLICKCategory:Pages with entries#CLICKCategory:Pages with 5 entries#CLICK

1. (USCategory:American English#CLICK) Misspelling of cliqueCategory:English misspellings#CLICK.

Related terms

Related terms

Related terms