Other forms: clucking, clucks
Cluck is the short, low clicking noise a hen makes as she walks about the yard, over and over, like a small running complaint. Not the crow of a cockerel and not an alarmed squawk — a steady, unbothered cluck.
People cluck as well. You cluck your tongue against the roof of your mouth to show disapproval, the tsk sound made out of clicks. And you cluck over somebody when you fuss around them making worried noises — she clucked over the children, the aunts clucking about how thin he looked. There is a noun too: a cluck of annoyance from behind the newspaper. Clucking works as a dismissive adjective for fussing people, and a broody hen is clucky, which in Australia stretches to a person longing for a baby.
1verbcluckOf a hen: to make short, repeated clicking sounds.
“The hens clucked around her feet waiting to be fed.”
2verbtongueTo make a clicking sound with the tongue, showing disapproval or sympathy.
“He clucked his tongue at the state of the kitchen.”
3verbfussTo fuss over someone with worried noises and attention.
“She clucked over him until he agreed to sit down.”
4nounshortA short clicking sound of this kind.
“He gave a cluck of disapproval and turned the page.”
Cluck goes back to Old English cloccian, to cluck, and it is imitative — the word is a straight attempt to say the sound. Most of northern Europe made the same attempt and landed in nearly the same place: Dutch klokken, German glucken, Swedish klucka, Danish klukke.
Proto-Germanic
*klukkwōną — to make a sound, cluck
Proto-West Germanic
*klukkwōn
Old English
cloccian — to cluck, make a noise
Middle English
clokken
English, today
cluck
From Middle English clokken, clocken, from Old English cloccian (“to cluck, make a noise”), from Proto-West Germanic klukkwōn, from Proto-Germanic klukkwōną (“to make a sound, cluck”), of imitative origin. Cognate with Scots clok, clock (“to cluck”), Dutch klokken (“to cluck”), Low German klucken (“to cluck”), German glucken (“to cluck”), Danish klukke (“to cluck”), Swedish klucka (“to cluck”), Icelandic klökkva (“to sob, whine, cluck”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire
First appears in chapter 17 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word