Other forms: clacking, clacks
To clack is to make a short sharp sound of hard things striking. Heels clacked, the keys clack, a clacking noise.
It is harder and drier than a clatter and it repeats — clacking is a series. Mechanical keyboards are sold on it. The word is imitative, which is why it needs no explanation in any language that has one like it. Note clackers and clapper, from the same family of noise words.
1verbclackTo make a short sharp sound of hard things striking.
“Her high heels clacked on the marble floor of the hotel lobby.”
clack is a sharp sound.
Old English clacian imitates the sound. Clap, click and cluck belong to the same family of noise words.
Proto-Germanic
*klakōną — to clap, chirp
Old English
*clacian — to slap, clap, clack
Middle English
clacken
English, today
clack
From Middle English clacken, clakken, claken, from Old English clacian (“to slap, clap, clack”), from Proto-Germanic klakōną (“to clap, chirp”). Cognate with Scots clake, claik (“to utter cries", also "to bedaub, sully with a sticky substance”), Dutch klakken (“to clack, crack”), Low German klakken (“to slap on, daub”), Norwegian - klakke (“to clack, strike, knock”), Icelandic klaka (“to twitter, chatter, wrangle, dispute”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire