click

• enPR: klĭk, IPA^(key): /ˈklɪk/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪk
• Homophones: clique, klick

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”).

click (plural clicks)

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, or a finger pressed against the thumb and then released to strike the hand.
   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room Chapter 1

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

   I turned the key, the lock gave a click and the door opened;  a click of one’s fingers

2. (phonetics) An ingressive sound made by coarticulating a velar or uvular closure with another closure.

   tsk is a click in English.

3. Sound made by a dolphin.
4. The act of operating a switch, etc., so that it clicks.
5. The act of pressing a button on a computer mouse, both as a physical act and a reaction in the software.

   With the right software you can program your mouse to do a double click with a single click (but that's cheating)

   1. (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.

6. 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.

click (third-person singular simple present clicks, present participle clicking, simple past and past participle clicked)

A mouse click

1. (transitive) To cause to make a click; to operate (a switch, etc) so that it makes a click.
   • Ben Jonson

     [Jove] clicked all his marble thumbs.

   • Thackeray

     She clicked back the bolt which held the window sash.

   • Tennyson

     when merry milkmaids click the latch

   • 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 […]

2. (transitive, computing, transitive, intransitive) To press and release (a button on a computer mouse).
3. (transitive, computing) To select a software item using, usually, but not always, the pressing of a mouse button.
4. (transitive, computing, advertising) To visit a web site.

   Visit a location, call, or click www.example.com.

5. (intransitive, computing) To navigate by clicking a mouse button.

   I soon grew bored and clicked away from the site.

   From the home page, click through to the Products section.

6. (intransitive) To emit a click.

   He bent his fingers back until the joints clicked.

7. (intransitive) To make sense suddenly.

   Then it clicked - I had been going the wrong way all that time.

8. (intransitive) To get on well.

   When we met at the party, we just clicked and we’ve been best friends ever since.

9. (dated, intransitive) To tick.
   • Goldsmith

     the varnished clock that clicked behind the door

10. (transitive, India) 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.

    • 2017, Pankaj Upadhyay, Homecoming

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

Style guides for technical writers generally recommend using click transitively (for example: click the button), but intransitive use with on (click on the icon) is also widespread. The style guides do accept the use of in in phrases like click in the field.

click

1. The sound of a click.

   Click! The door opened.

• click one's fingers

• ejective
• tsk, tsk tsk

click (plural clicks)

1. Alternative spelling of klick

Compare Old French clique (“latch”).

click (plural clicks)

1. A detent, pawl, or ratchet, such as that which catches the cogs of a ratchet wheel to prevent backward motion.
2. (Britain, dialectal) The latch of a door.

Old English kleken? clichen? Compare clutch.

click (third-person singular simple present clicks, present participle clicking, simple past and past participle clicked)

1. (obsolete) To snatch.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Halliwell to this entry?)

click (plural clicks)

1. (US) Misspelling of clique.

click (third-person singular simple present clicks, present participle clicking, simple past and past participle clicked)

1. (US) Misspelling of clique.

English

click m (invariable)

1. click; variant of clic (especially of a computer mouse)

click m (plural clicks)

1. click