click
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "click", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "click" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "click" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
click is aEnglishnoun. It means: 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 la... Pronounced /klɪk/. It ranks #1,594 in English word frequency. Often confused with clip and cock.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | click |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /klɪk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,594 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for click is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /klɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,594 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for click, with forms such as "cclick", "cilck", and "clcik". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "clip", "cock", "clit", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Imitative of the "click" sound; first recorded in the 1500s. Compare Saterland Frisian klikke (“to click”), Middle Dutch clicken (Modern Dutch: klikken (“to click”)), Old High German klecchen (Modern German: klecken, klicken (“to click”)), Danish klikke (“t… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is click, spelled C-L-I-C-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A 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.
- 2The act of snapping one's fingers.
- 3An ingressive sound made by coarticulating a velar or uvular closure with another closure.
- 4The sound made by a dolphin.
- 5The act of operating a switch, etc., so that it clicks.
- 6The act of pressing a button on a computer mouse or similar input device, both as a physical act and a reaction in the software.
- 7A single instance of content on the Internet being accessed.
- 8A pawl or similar catch.
- 9A knock or blow.
- 10A limb contortion at the joint, part of vogue dancing.
- 11A click track.
Etymology
Imitative of the "click" sound; first recorded in the 1500s. Compare Saterland Frisian klikke (“to click”), Middle Dutch clicken (Modern Dutch: klikken (“to click”)), Old High German klecchen (Modern German: klecken, klicken (“to click”)), Danish klikke (“to click”), Swedish klicka (“to click”), Norwegian klikke (“to click”), Norwegian klekke (“to hatch”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cclick,cilck,clcik,clicck,clickk,clikc,cllick,lcick
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for click
Misspelling Variants of "click"
Frequency rank: #1,594 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: