click
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: klĭk
ipa: /klɪk/
ipa: [kʰl̥ɪk]
rhymes: -ɪk
homophone: clique
homophone: klick
Forms: form: clicks
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”).
Senses: examples: text: As I turned the key, the lock gave a click and the door opened.
text: There was a click in the front sitting-room. Mr. Pearce had extinguished the lamp.
ref: 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:
glosses: 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.
glosses: The act of snapping one's fingers.
examples: text: tsk is a click in English.
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
phonetics
phonology
sciences
synonyms: click consonant
glosses: An ingressive sound made by coarticulating a velar or uvular closure with another closure.
glosses: The sound made by a dolphin.
glosses: The act of operating a switch, etc., so that it clicks.
topics: computing
engineering
graphical-user-interface
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: 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.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 48:
text: 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.
ref: 2013 July 26, Charles Arthur, “Porn sites get more internet traffic in UK than social networks or shopping”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
glosses: A single instance of content on the Internet being accessed.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1943, Chilton's Jewelers' Circular:
glosses: A pawl or similar catch.
examples: text: 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, […]
ref: 1808, Richard Graves, The Spiritual Quixote, page 127:
glosses: A knock or blow.
glosses: A limb contortion at the joint, part of vogue dancing.