cluck
verbEtymology 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”).
1
To make low clicking sounds (refers to hens).
- "I came across him once," he continued, "when he was playing down on the main road to Skaug; there he sat in the middle of the road with a lot of hens around him, I counted seven, and there were more round about in the wood, for I heard them clucking and calling behind every bush."1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 72:
2
To cause (the tongue) to make a clicking sound.
- My mother clucked her tongue in disapproval.
3
To call together, or call to follow, as a hen does her chickens.
- When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood, Has clucked thee to the wars and safely home.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:
4
UK To suffer withdrawal from heroin.
- Derived terms
- clucker, cluck one's tongue, clucky
- Related terms
- cackle