Etymology

clickbait

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Today it means: Website content that is aimed at generating advertising revenue, especially at the expense of quality or accuracy, relying on sensationalist headlines to attract click-throughs; such headlines. Full definition →

English bait ← Middle English bayte ← Old Norse beita
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The story

  1. Englishclick
  2. Proto-Indo-European*bʰeyd-
  3. Proto-Indo-European*bʰéydt
  4. Proto-Germanic*bītaną
  5. Proto-Germanic*baitijaną
  6. Old Norsebeita
  7. Middle Englishbayte
  8. Englishbait
  9. English todayclickbait

From click + -bait (“manipulation to elicit a particular response”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.