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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

cluck.

The sound made by a hen, especially when brooding, or calling her chicks.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/klʌk/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/klʊk/Ireland, Northern-England/klɐk/Australia, New-Zealand

  1. The sound made by a hen, especially when brooding, or calling her chicks.

  2. Any sound similar to this.

  3. A kind of tongue click used to urge on a horse.

  4. A setting hen.

    Texas
Where this word comes from

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”).

verb/klʌk/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/klʊk/Ireland, Northern-England/klɐk/Australia, New-Zealand

  1. To make low clicking sounds (refers to hens).

    intransitive

  2. To cause (the tongue) to make a clicking sound.

    transitive
    My mother clucked her tongue in disapproval.

  3. To call together, or call to follow, as a hen does her chickens.

  4. To suffer withdrawal from heroin.

    UK
Where this word comes from

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”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.