Forms: 3–7 clacke, 5 clake, 6– clack. [ME. clack-en: cf. F. claque-r to clack, clap hands, crack a whip, strike the jaws together; also Du. klakken to clack, crack, MHG. klac a crack, etc., OHG. kleken (:—klakjan), MHG. klecken to make a crack; also ON. klaka to twitter, as a swallow, chatter as a pie. The relations between these are uncertain: the form is evidently echoic, and may have arisen independently in different langs. and periods. Cf. CLAP, CRACK.]
1. intr. To chatter, prate, talk loquaciously. Said of chattering birds and human beings.
a. 1250. Owl & Night., 81. Þi bile is stif and scharp and hoked … Þar mid þu clackest [v.r. clechest] oft and longe.
c. 1420. Liber Cocorum (1862), 38. To speke of bakun mete I wolde clake.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 602. Thus as mens imaginations ranne, so their tongues clacked.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Bergerac’s Com. Hist., I. 121. The whole Mobile clacked with the Beak, in sign of Joy.
1798. Poetry, in Ann. Reg., 447. Mark the pleader who clacks in his clients behalf With my lud, and his ludship, three hours and a half.
1832. Macaulay, Lett., in Trevelyan, Life (1876), I. v. 267. He will sit clacking with an old woman for hours.
1863. Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., i. 20. The usual recipe for concocting a lady’s maid, by making her clack like a mill-wheel.
2. trans. To utter chatteringly, to blab.
1590. Greene, Never too late (1600), 48. Tis not euer true, that what the hart thinketh the tongue clacketh.
1627–8. Feltham, Resolves, I. iv. (1659), 183 (R.). Custome makes them clack out any thing their heedlesse fancy springes.
3. To cluck, or cackle, as a hen. Cf. CLOCK, CLUCK.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 479, ¶ 4. My hen clacks very much, but she brings me chickens.
1833. Tennyson, Goose, vi. The more the white goose laid It clack’d and cackled louder.
1872. Tinsley Mag., Xmas. No. 17. My old mother used to say that every hen’s got enough to do to look after its own chicks, and it clacks enough over that, goodness knows.
4. intr. To make a sound intermediate between a clap and a crack, as a hard substance, such as a piece of wood, does in striking a hard surface. To clack (more commonly to crack) a whip.
1530. Palsgr., 485/1. The myll gothe, for I here the clacke clacke … car je os le clacquet clacquer or clacqueter.
1570. Levins, Manip., 5. To clacke, clangitare.
1611. Cotgr., Claquer, to clacke, to clap, to clatter.
1726. Dict. Rust. (ed. 3), s.v. Capriole, He Clacks or makes a Noise with them.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, viii. 57. Whip clacking on the shoulders.
1875. Howells, Foregone Concl., 60. A woman clacking across the flags in her wooden heeled shoes.
† b. transf. to similar actions. Obs.
1740. E. Baynard, Health (ed. 6), 27. Th’ heart clacks on, and is a mill, That’s independent of the will.
5. trans. To cause (things) to make such a sound.
1542. Boorde, Dyetary, xi. (1870), 260. Euyl ale-brewers and ale-wyues … shuld clacke and ryng theyr tankardes at dym myls dale.
1611. Florio, Castagnétte, little shels vsed of those that dance the canaries to clacke or snap with their fingers.
1676. Hobbes, Iliad (1677), 163. He clackt his whip.
1872. Darwin, Emotions, 214. The Australians smacked and clacked their mouths at the sight of his horses and bullocks.
† B. The verb stem used adverbially: At once, on the instant, pat, ‘slick’; cf. bang, plump, etc.
a. 1734. North, Exam., II. v. § 50 (1740), 345. They went all, clack, to Conventicles, I’ll warrant ye! Ibid., III. vii. § 44 (1740), 535. The Money was not got; if that had fallen in clack, the King had compleated a Negotiation.
