Word.ws English Dictionary

cliquing

cliquing is the present participle and gerund of clique.

Meaning of clique

Verb

clique (third-person singular simple present cliques, present participle cliquing, simple past and past participle cliqued)

  1. (informal, intransitive) To form a clique (“small, exclusive group of individuals, usually having some common characteristic”; noun sense 1); to associate with others in a clannish way.
    • [N]o unkind feeling should exist in the profession, for this never puts a penny more into a man's pocket; and […] that injurious system of cliquing together should be put a stop to, […]1843 September 28, George French Flowers, “The Contrapuntist’s Society [letter to the editor]”, in [George Macfarren], editor, The Musical World, volume XVIII, number 39, London: E. B. Taylor […]...
  2. (informal, intransitive, specifically) To act with others secretly to gain a desired end; to plot, to scheme.

See all 6 meanings of clique

Questions about cliquing

What is cliquing the present participle and gerund of?
Cliquing is the present participle and gerund of clique.

Words near cliquing in the dictionary

  1. cliquey
  2. cliqueyness
  3. cliquier
  4. cliquiest
  5. cliquiness
  6. cliquing
  7. cliquish
  8. cliquishly
  9. cliquishness
  10. cliquism
  11. cliquisms

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cliquing (page history and authors); clique (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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Cite this entry: “cliquing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cliquing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.