click
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: klĭk
ipa: /klɪk/
ipa: [kʰl̥ɪk]
rhymes: -ɪk
homophone: clique
homophone: klick
Forms: form: clicks
form: clicking
form: clicked
form: clicked
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: [Jove] clicked all his marble thumbs.
ref: 1603 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, Seianus His Fall, London: […] G[eorge] Elld, for Thomas Thorpe, published 1605, →OCLC, (please specify the page):
text: She clicked back the bolt which held the window sash.
ref: 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter L, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “Song.—The Owl.”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, stanza 2, page 20:
text: 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 […]
ref: 1918, The Cosmopolitan, volume 66, page 61:
text: Dan clicked his tongue.
ref: 1956, Ethel Anderson, At Parramatta, published 1985, page 60:
glosses: To cause to make a click; to operate (a switch, etc) so that it makes a click.
examples: text: Surely that picture will be fixed for ever, for I heard the cameras clicking round me like crickets in a field.
ref: 1929, Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed:
glosses: To emit a click.
glosses: To snap one's fingers.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To press and release (a button on a computer mouse).
topics: computing
engineering
graphical-user-interface
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To select a software item using, usually, but not always, the pressing of a mouse button.
examples: text: Visit a location, call, or click www.example.com.
topics: advertising
business
computing
engineering
marketing
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To visit (a website).
examples: text: I soon grew bored and clicked away from the site.
text: From the home page, click through to the Products section.
topics: computing
engineering
graphical-user-interface
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To navigate by clicking a mouse button.
examples: text: Then it clicked—I had been going the wrong way all that time.
glosses: To make sense suddenly.
examples: text: When we met at the party, we just clicked and we’ve been best friends ever since.
text: 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.”
ref: 1918 [1915], Thomas Burke, Nights in London, New York: Henry Holt and Company, page 75:
glosses: To get along well.
examples: text: the varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door
ref: 1770, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, a Poem, London: […] W[illiam] Griffin, […], →OCLC:
glosses: To tick.
examples: text: Brad immediately took out his Iphone^([sic]) and clicked a picture of the plant and posted it up on Google and clicked search.
ref: 2014, Dhisti Desai, Innocent Desire, page 107:
text: They clicked some pictures outside his sea facing bungalow and left dejected again.
ref: 2017, Pankaj Upadhyay, Homecoming:
glosses: To take (a photograph) with a camera.
glosses: To achieve success in one's career or a breakthrough, often the first time.
glosses: Of a film, to be successful at the box office.