Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use clique in a sentence

34 example sentences · noun, verb

Clique means a small, exclusive group of individuals, usually having some common characteristic such as lifestyle or social status, or common purpose; specifically one formed for disreputable purposes, or which purports to be an authority on a particular matter; a cabal. Example: “This school used to be really friendly, but now everyone keeps to their own cliques.”

Examples of clique by meaning

nounA small, exclusive group of individuals, usually having some common characteristic such as lifestyle or social status...

  • This school used to be really friendly, but now everyone keeps to their own cliques.
  • There had been talk of some disagreement about a picture, but in Sir Maxwell's experience, artists frequently disagreed about pictures, with no more consequences than a little cold-shouldering or the formation of a clique.1931, Dorothy L[eigh] Sayers, “Farren”, in The Five Red Herrings, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC, page 61

nounA subgraph isomorphic to a complete graph.

  • The problem of finding the largest clique in an arbitrary graph is NP-complete.

nounAn informal faction in the Republic of China (1912–1949) led by one or more warlords exercising regional control...

  • In the South, too, due either to direct or indirect machinations by imperialism, there mushroomed many cliques and factions which fought against one another; in the provinces, small cliques and factions within big ones were also struggling against one another.1954, Tsjenn Po-ta [i.e., Chen Boda], chapter 2, in [anonymous], transl., Notes on Ten Years of Civil War (1927–1936), Beijing: Foreign...
  • And, in this year, Wu Peifu, by defeating the Fengtian Clique in the Zhili-Fengtian Clique War, also reached the zenith of his power and influence.2022, Vivienne Xiangwei Guo, “The Beginning of the End: Wu Peifu and Good Government”, in Negotiating a Chinese Federation: The Exchange of...

verbTo form a clique (“small, exclusive group of individuals, usually having some common characteristic”; noun sense 1); to...

  • I don't want you kids cliquing together.2017, D. D. [Deandrea] Myrick, “Show Me What You’re Made of … Mckintower!!!!”, in Trudy Mackintower & the Originals (First Day of School...

More sentences with clique

  • I have to crack up that little clique.From the entry crack up
  • The boys in their school also have cliques, the most talked about one being ‘Mat Reps’.2011, Viniti Vaish & Mardiana Roslan ,‘Crossing’ in Singapore, 323. From the entry mat rep
  • The Chiang Kai-shek clique now occupies some of the Nan-sha islands.1979, “Problems with Socialist Countries”, in King C. Chen, editor, China and the Three Worlds: A Foreign Policy Reader, M.E. Sharpe…. From the entry Nan-sha
  • Undeniably the people of that part are a clique with a Wirralian outlook.1938, Edmund Vale, How to see England, page 20. From the entry Wirralian
  • An English clique of literati and sciolistic scientists, headed by a sciolistic pretender named Dr.1900, Transactions of the Dental Society of the State of New York, Albany, N.Y.: Argus Co., printers, →OCLC, page 147. From the entry sciolistic
  • Some yeargroups broke down into cliques, usually dividing between the two primary training groups: hand-to-hand combat versus the marksmen.2016, J. Kathleen Cheney, Dreaming Death, page 255. From the entry yeargroup
  • Ellison began to rattle off the list of cliques as he pointed to each table with his sandwich.2011, Madison Adler, The Glass Wall, Bento Box Books, →ISBN, page 55. From the entry World of Warcrafter
  • If you were not with a clique, you are strange.2010, Cheryl Denise Bannerman, Black Child to Black Woman: A Journey of Tremendous Proportions, page 38. From the entry caf
  • On still weasellier, greasier members of the clique.1996, Will Self, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, →ISBN. From the entry weaselly
  • And they serve it up with a powerful seasoning of old-boyism and arbitrary clique preference as between white males.1995, Duncan Kennedy, Sexy Dressing Etc, →ISBN, page 45. From the entry old-boyism
  • Well there was always cliques as far as that goes.1993, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, Madeline D. Davis, quoting D. J., “‘Maybe ’cause Things Were Harder … You Had to Be More Friendly’: Race…. From the entry snooty
  • Our addicts all have ample checkbooks, the best insurance their professions can buy, and membership in the right upscale cliques.1990 February 4, Leonard Tirado, “Privatized 'Recovery' Versus Collective Action”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 29, page 5. From the entry rehab
  • When the first show was over, a clique, a claque of six or so, back on the west side applauded.1963, Ken Kelman, “Smith Myth”, in P. Adams Sitney, editor, Film Culture Reader (Praeger Film Books), New York, N.Y.; Washington, D.C.…. From the entry frontish
  • My view is that a fraternity is nothing more than a très snob clique or caucus, but I may be wrong.1947 January 1, Hod., “An Innocent at Large”, in Punch, volume 212, page 16, column 2. From the entry très
  • It is that small clique of people who . . . walk about wearing bérets and converse in French.1944 September, “[Oppression and Terror] Enforced Germanisation”, in A Catalogue of Crime: An Outline Indictment of German War Guilt…. From the entry béret
  • To answer that question, we need to consider Hanahoe, as Chun’s clique was called, as well as Chun’s position at the head of the DSC.2023 November 30, Kwon Hyuk-chul, “How Chun Doo-hwan seized power in a coup — and why it’s unlikely to happen now”, in The Hankyoreh. From the entry Hanahoe
  • This little clique is reserved for members who boast skills indistinguishable from those of Dumbledore, but who exist in an otherwise normal non-Hogwartsy world.2017, Nick Mohammed, The Young Magicians and the Thieves’ Almanac, Puffin Books, →ISBN, page 369. From the entry Hogwartsy
  • What, and be buried in wikilawyering designed to keep actual subject matter experts out and leave wp safely in the hands of the wikieditor cliques?2012, Graham Nye, “Four killed in US when train hits float carrying veterans”, in uk.railway (Usenet). From the entry wikilawyering
  • A factory-wide meeting was called, and the head of the Workers' Rebellion Organization announced that a "counter-revolutionary clique" was on the loose.2000, Yarong Jiang, David Ashley, Mao's Children in the New China: Voices From the Red Guard Generation, page 165. From the entry call for
  • At the time Feng Yü-hsiang arrived in Pukow, Feng Kuo-chang had seemed to be gaining the upper hand over Tuan and his clique.1966, James E. Sheridan, Chinese Warlord: The Career of Feng Yü-hsiang, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, →LCCN, →OCLC…. From the entry feng
  • I longed to be one of the girls from the local clique of farming families who seemed to own half the county and attracted the Rupert Campbell-Black types.2023 November 13, Georgina Fuller, “My teenage Jilly Cooper obsession made me hunt down a COTSWOLD CAD”, in Daily Mail, London, page 36. From the entry Notswolds
  • But when you gotta file some dumb copy to make the yell-at-the-cloud clique smile, I guess you leave the research for the younger, more energetic folk.2016 October 17, Greg Jericho, “I could get outraged by this boomer-millennial war, but I'd rather look at the evidence”, in Katharine…. From the entry yell at the cloud
  • From a global perspective, locavorism begins to look like a narcissistic pseudomoralistic club for the wealthy to keep food and money circulating among their own tight little cliques.2012, Steven Poole, You Aren't What You Eat: Fed Up with Gastroculture, →ISBN. From the entry locavorism
  • The Lavender Quill Society, that group of in-bred Manhattan gay writers who believe that gay literature begins and ends in their clique (outsiders need not apply for membership).1987 April 4, T.R. Witomski, “witomski responds to readers' response to witomski (letter)”, in Gay Community News, page 6. From the entry inbred
  • Interestingly , `cheesers' were usually despised by the majority of inmates, and by no means only by the 'daddy' and his surrounding clique of 'hard men'.1973, A. E. Bottoms, Frederick Hemming McClintock, Criminals Coming of Age, page 163. From the entry cheeser
  • The Soviet revisionist renegade clique is struggling desperately in the hope of saving itself from doom, but this will only bring on its destruction more quickly."1969 March 14 [1969 March 13], “Report from Border Areas”, in Daily Report: Foreign Radio Broadcasts, number 50, Foreign Broadcast…. From the entry tsar
  • But when they come together in a clique they come sneakishly, eschewing all change or disagreement, though it is to dine to a brass band in a big London hotel.1912, G. K. Chesterton, “The Sectarian of Society”, in A Miscellany of Men. From the entry sneakishly
  • A machine politician cannot see why the straight ticket (as he and his clique of party bosses prepare it) should not be voted by every citizen belonging to that party.1902, The Friend. From the entry machine

Meaning of clique

  1. noun A small, exclusive group of individuals, usually having some common characteristic such as lifestyle or social status, or common purpose; specifically one formed for disreputable purposes, or which purports to be an authority on a particular matter; a cabal.
  2. noun A subgraph isomorphic to a complete graph.
  3. noun A group of related websites that link to each other, like a webring but with exclusive membership determined by the clique owner.

Full definition of clique

Questions about clique in a sentence

How do you use clique in a sentence?
Clique is used as a noun and verb. For example: “This school used to be really friendly, but now everyone keeps to their own cliques.”
What is a short sentence with clique?
“I don't want you kids cliquing together.”
What does clique mean?
Clique means a small, exclusive group of individuals, usually having some common characteristic such as lifestyle or social status, or common purpose; specifically one formed for disreputable purposes, or which purports to be an authority on a particular matter; a cabal.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clique (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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