Word.ws English Dictionary

click one's tongue

click one's tongue verb: to make a clicking noise with a sucking action of the tongue, to express disapproval or impatience, urge on a horse, etc.

Verb

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

  1. To make a clicking noise with a sucking action of the tongue, to express disapproval or impatience, urge on a horse, etc.
    • The driver clambered into his seat, clicked his tongue, and we went downhill.1896, Joseph Conrad, “The Idiots”, in Tales of Unrest, published 1898
    • Elizabeth raised her gun, which had begun trembling as usual. The beaters halted in a group to watch, and some of them could not refrain from clicking their tongues; they thought it queer and rather shocking to see a woman handle a gun.1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], “Chapter 14”, in Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC

Synonyms of click one's tongue

Forms of click one's tongue

third-person singular presentclicks one's tongue
present participleclicking one's tongue
past participleclicked one's tongue
pastclicked one's tongue

Questions about click one's tongue

What does click one's tongue mean?
Click one's tongue means to make a clicking noise with a sucking action of the tongue, to express disapproval or impatience, urge on a horse, etc.
What part of speech is click one's tongue?
Click one's tongue is a verb.
What is the past tense of click one's tongue?
The past tense of click one's tongue is clicked one's tongue.

Words near click one's tongue in the dictionary

  1. click into gear
  2. click of death
  3. click of the fingers
  4. click off
  5. click one's fingers
  6. click one's tongue
  7. click path
  8. click paths
  9. click pencil
  10. click pencils
  11. click reaction

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: click one's tongue (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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