click
/klɪk/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.82 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
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.
noun
An ingressive sound made by coarticulating a velar or uvular closure with another closure.
noun
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.
noun
A single instance of content on the Internet being accessed.
Example Sentences
- "As I turned the key, the lock gave a click and the door opened."
- "There was a click in the front sitting-room. Mr. Pearce had extinguished the lamp."
- "tsk is a click in English."
- "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."
- "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."
- "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."
Etymology
Imitative of the "click" sound; first recorded in the 1500s. Compare Saterland Frisian klikke (“to click”), Middle Dutch clicken (Modern Dutch: klikken (“to click”)), Old High German klecchen (Modern German: klecken, klicken (“to click”)), Danish klikke (“to click”), Swedish klicka (“to click”), Norwegian klikke (“to click”), Norwegian klekke (“to hatch”).