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Glite Dictionary
clucking

clucking

7 4.4
A soft, short sound a hen makes to call her chicks
  • noun
  • /ˈklʌkɪŋ/
translation icon : cacareo
  • More than the clucking, she hears the rattling sound of the birds' thick claws scraping against the metal cages.
  • clucking sound
  • clucking hen
  • clucking noise

Examples

  • Iva Lou sees this, too, and she makes a disgusted clucking noise.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • It was absolutely miserable. "Jay made the appropriate clucking sounds of understanding and reached for her hand.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • Theodora made a clucking noise.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • The chickens' clucking turned into a eulogy of death or resurrection.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • But you approach this mysteriously newly dug field that has nothing on it apart from the sound of clucking from beneath.

  • There are 90,000 other clucking hens in the coop.

    Stuck on You! (1982)

  • By the second day, I've abandoned the wheelchair, despite the maternity ward nurses' clucking of tongues.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • He knelt there, straightened her clothes while he made little clucking sounds, and kissed her knees.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • All that clucking, fussing, preening, a bunch of broody hens.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • The hen was clucking loudly as she called her chicks to come and eat.

Synonyms

cluck
vsclucking
12 4.3

A short sharp sound a hen makes to call her chicks

is a general hen sound rather than a single sharp call
bawk
vsclucking
10 9.9

A short clucking sound made by a chicken

is a specific hen call used mainly to summon her chicks

How Loud

squawk
21 4.9
cackle
10 4.1
clucking
7 4.4
to cheep
1 3.9
peep
14 1.0

Surface Forms

clucking singular
cluckings plural

Morphology

clucking = cluck (transparent) = cluck + ing

The noun meaning 'the sound made by a hen' is directly formed from the verb 'cluck' with the gerund/nominalizing '-ing'.

Etymology

Clucking comes from the simple sound word cluck, which copies the quick 'cluck' noise a hen makes when she calls her chicks. So clucking just means that hen sound.