cluck
1 Americanverb (used without object)
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clucks,
present (3rd person singular)
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clucked,
past participle, past
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clucking
present participle
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to utter the cry of a hen brooding or calling her chicks.
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to make a similar sound; express concern, approval, etc., by such a sound.
verb (used with object)
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clucks,
present (3rd person singular)
-
clucked,
past participle, past
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clucking
present participle
noun
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the sound uttered by a hen when brooding, or in calling her chicks.
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any clucking sound.
noun
noun
verb
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(intr) (of a hen) to make a clicking sound
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(tr) to call or express (a feeling) by making a similar sound
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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clucksimple
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cluckssimple
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have cluckedperfect
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has cluckedperfect
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am cluckingprogressive
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are cluckingprogressive
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is cluckingprogressive
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have been cluckingperfect progressive
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has been cluckingperfect progressive
Past
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cluckedsimple
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had cluckedperfect
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was cluckingprogressive
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were cluckingprogressive
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had been cluckingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cluck1
1475–85; variant of clock 1 (now dial. and Scot), Middle English clokken, Old English cloccian to cluck; cognate with Dutch klokken
Origin of cluck2
1900–05, special use of cluck 1
Explanation
The sound a chicken makes is a cluck. One of the best things about keeping chickens in your yard is watching them scratch the dirt and listening to their clucks. A chicken or hen clucks when she's rounding up her chicks, making a short, relatively deep sound. To do this is also to cluck, and you can use the word to talk about a fussy or overprotective parent too: "It's so funny watching him cluck over his kids at the playground." The Old English root of cluck is cloccian, and both words are imitative — they echo the sound they're describing.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It certainly also helps that chicken thighs, by wide acclaim, are more difficult to cluck up in the kitchen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026
"Everyone has their own inyeon," they cluck back.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2023
With the annual Thanksgiving holidays fast approaching, the agency leaned heavily into festive puns in their caption, quipping that its officers "are always working around the cluck to keep you safe".
From BBC ● Nov. 8, 2022
Mochrie was eager for a challenge, even if he worried that the laughs would come from making audiences cluck like chickens.
From New York Times ● Aug. 15, 2022
I heard Chubs’s tongue cluck as he opened his mouth to say something, but there was a sharp cough from the driver’s seat.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
A University of Queensland-led study has found humans can tell if chickens are excited or displeased, just by the sound of their clucks.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 2, 2024
And that could lead to a future with many more happy clucks.
From Science Magazine ● Jun. 28, 2022
My rooster's clucks are used to refer to the food – with the hens understanding that reference.
From Salon ● May 30, 2022
The clucks from children coaxing donkeys carrying loads of coal down the mountain.
From New York Times ● Mar. 29, 2022
“I made your favorite biryani,” Naano says, and clucks her disapproval.
From "Zara’s Rules for Record-Breaking Fun" by Hena Khan
“The difference is the facts,” Mr. Smith clucked.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2025
In the tangled stanza he creatively plays with clucked and plucked and how other rappers don't paint pictures, they just trace them.
From Salon ● Sep. 3, 2023
The chief clucked his tongue some more, lapsing into silence.
From Slate ● Nov. 26, 2022
Deanna Lin, who owns four chickens in Menlo Park, was unaware of the outbreak as her four hens clucked and scratched across her yard last week.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2022
A hen clucked and rattled its cage in a corner.
From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff
I remember the clucking when Mr. Cook took over as CEO in 2011.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 3, 2026
"He didn't let US government clucking and handwringing stop him," says Robert Carlin.
From BBC ● Jan. 10, 2025
Even a peep of news about a new flu pandemic is enough to set scientists clucking about eggs.
From Salon ● Jun. 1, 2024
This term means that the hens are not kept in cages, but it doesn’t mean they’re clucking around in the fresh air and sunshine.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 17, 2023
The State called Dr. Seger, who persuaded the jury that there was nothing mentally wrong with George, even as he continuously spit in a cup and made loud clucking noises throughout the trial.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
