click

Noun (1)

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.
   • 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. (UK) The act of snapping one's fingers.
3. An 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. The 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. (broadly) A single instance of content on the Internet being accessed.
   • 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....2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 48
   • 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
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. (UK, obsolete, slang) A 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. (informal) A 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

Verb (1)

click (third-person singular simple present clicks, present participle clicking, simple past and past participle clicked)

1. (transitive) To cause to make a click; to operate (a switch, etc) so that it makes a click.
   • [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
2. (intransitive) To 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. (UK) To snap one's fingers.
4. To press and release (a button on a computer mouse).
5. (transitive) To select a software item using, usually, but not always, the pressing of a mouse button.
6. (transitive) To visit (a website).
   • Visit a location, call, or click www.example.com.
7. (intransitive) To navigate by clicking a mouse button.
   • I soon grew bored and clicked away from the site.
   • From the home page, click through to the Products section.
8. (intransitive) To make sense suddenly.
   • Then it clicked—I had been going the wrong way all that time.
9. (intransitive) To get along well.
   • When we met at the party, we just clicked and we’ve been best friends ever since.
   • 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. (dated, intransitive) To tick.
    • the varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door1770, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, a Poem, London: […] W[illiam] Griffin, […], →OCLC
11. (India, transitive) To take (a photograph) with a camera.
    • 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
    • They clicked some pictures outside his sea facing bungalow and left dejected again.2017, Pankaj Upadhyay, Homecoming
12. (India, intransitive) To achieve success in one's career or a breakthrough, often the first time.
13. (India, intransitive) Of a film, to be successful at the box office.

Interjection

1. The sound of a click.
   • Click! The door opened.

Noun (2)

click (plural clicks)

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

Verb (2)

click (third-person singular simple present clicks, present participle clicking, simple past and past participle clicked)

1. (obsolete) To 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

Noun (3)

click (plural clicks)

1. A kind of throw.
   • inside click; outside click; cross click

Proper noun capitalized: Click

Click (countable and uncountable, plural Clicks)

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