Chiefly Sc. Forms: 5–6 cleke, 5–7 cleik, 8– cleek. [Related to CLEEK v.; cf. southern ME. cleche. Cf. also CLICK.]
1. A large hook or crook for catching hold of and pulling something; or for hanging articles on, from a rafter, or the like. Cleeks are used by fishermen, and also in playing golf.
1426. Acts Jas. I. (1597), § 7. Cleikes of irin, to draw downe Timber and Ruiffis that ar fired.
1541. Sc. Ld. Treas. Acc., in Pitcairn, Crim. Trials, I. *310. Nalis, [or] clekis to hing þe clathis.
1682. Claverhouse, in Napier, Mem. (1859), I. I. 137. The smith at Minnigaff, that made all the clikys.
17[?]. Anc. Poems Peasantry (1846), 113. He has made a cleek but and a creel.
1765. A. Dickson, Treat. Agric. (ed. 2), 200. B, is a hook, or the cleek … which joins the muzzle and swingle-tree.
1822. Scott, Nigel, xxxvii. ‘He hings his sword on the cleek.’
1865. Reader, 12 Aug., 172/1. Having lost a hand … Ronald has had it replaced by an iron hook, which he calls a ‘cleek.’
1883. Standard, 16 Nov., 5/2. He … is ready with … the cleek [at golf].
2. An act of cleeking, a clutch.
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 2163. May vs noȝt limp … To couer be cas at a cleke courseris a thousand?
† 3. Name of some griping disease; Jamieson says ‘cramp in the legs.’ Obs.
a. 1605. Montgomerie, Flyting, 301. The cords and the cout-euill, the claisps and the cleiks.
4. Comb., as cleek-staff, -shank, etc.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 80. Cley[k]staffe, cambuca.
