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.

   As I turned the key, the lock gave a click and the door opened.

   1 more example

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

   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

2. UKThe act of snapping one's fingers.
3. human sciencesAn ingressive sound made by coarticulating a velar or uvular closure with another closure.

   tsk is a click in English.

   Synonyms: click consonant

4. The sound made by a dolphin.
5. The act of operating a switch, etc., so that it clicks.
6. computingThe act of pressing a button on a computer mouse or similar input device, both as a physical act and a reaction in the software.
7. broadlyA single instance of content on the Internet being accessed.

   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.

   2013 July 26, Charles Arthur, “Porn sites get more internet traffic in UK than social networks or shopping”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   1 more example

   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.

   2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 48

8. A pawl or similar catch.

   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.

   1943, Chilton's Jewelers' Circular

9. UKobsoleteslangA knock or blow.

   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, […]

   1808, Richard Graves, The Spiritual Quixote, page 127

10. A limb contortion at the joint, part of vogue dancing.
11. informalentertainmentA click track.

    But I knew I needed a click, so we put a click on the 24-track, which then was synced to the Moog Modular.

    2013, “Giorgio by Moroder”, in Giorgio Moroder (lyrics), Random Access Memories, performed by Daft Punk

present singular third person clicks · participle present clicking · participle past clicked · past clicked

1. transitiveTo cause to make a click; to operate (a switch, etc) so that it makes a click.

   Dan clicked his tongue.

   1956, Ethel Anderson, At Parramatta, published 1985, page 60

   4 more examples

   [Jove] clicked all his marble thumbs.

   1603 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, Seianus His Fall, London: […] G[eorge] Elld, for Thomas Thorpe, published 1605, →OCLC, (please specify the page)

   She clicked back the bolt which held the window sash.

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter L, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC

   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.

   1842, Alfred Tennyson, “Song.—The Owl.”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, stanza 2, page 20

   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 […]

   1918, The Cosmopolitan, volume 66, page 61

2. intransitiveTo emit a click.

   Surely that picture will be fixed for ever, for I heard the cameras clicking round me like crickets in a field.

   1929, Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed

3. UKTo snap one's fingers.
4. computingTo press and release (a button on a computer mouse).
5. transitivecomputingTo select a software item using, usually, but not always, the pressing of a mouse button.
6. transitiveadvertisingTo visit (a website).

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

7. intransitivecomputingTo navigate by clicking a mouse button.

   I soon grew bored and clicked away from the site.

   1 more example

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

8. intransitiveTo make sense suddenly.

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

9. intransitiveTo get along well.

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

   1 more example

   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.”

   1918 [1915], Thomas Burke, Nights in London, New York: Henry Holt and Company, page 75

10. datedintransitiveTo tick.

    the varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door

    1770, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, a Poem, London: […] W[illiam] Griffin, […], →OCLC

11. IndiatransitiveTo take (a photograph) with a camera.

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

    2017, Pankaj Upadhyay, Homecoming

    1 more example

    Brad immediately took out his Iphone^([sic]) and clicked a picture of the plant and posted it up on Google and clicked search.

    2014, Dhisti Desai, Innocent Desire, page 107

12. IndiaintransitiveTo achieve success in one's career or a breakthrough, often the first time.
13. IndiaintransitiveOf a film, to be successful at the box office.

1. The sound of a click.

   Click! The door opened.

plural clicks

1. alternativeslanggovernmentAlternative spelling of klick (“kilometer; kilometers per hour”).

   No siree, Bob, we are the only ship in three million clicks.

   2015 November 23, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, “Dulcinea”, in The Expanse, season 1, episode 1, spoken by Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar)

plural clicks

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

present singular third person clicks · participle present clicking · participle past clicked · past clicked

1. obsoleteTo snatch.

   ‘I take 'em to prevent abuses,’ Cants he, and then the Crucifix And Chalice from the Altar clicks.

   1716, Thomas Ward, England's Reformation

plural clicks

1. governmentA kind of throw.

   inside click; outside click; cross click

1. USmisspellingMisspelling of clique.

1. USmisspellingMisspelling of clique.

plural Clicks

1. countableuncountableA surname.
2. countableuncountableA ghost town in Llano County, Texas, United States, named after settler Malachi Click.