▪ I. clique, n.
(kliːk)
Also 9 clicque, click n.3
[recent a. F. clique, not in Cotgr., but quoted by Littré of 15th c. in sense ‘noise, clicking sound’, f. cliquer to click, clack, clap. Littré says that in the modern sense it is originally the same as claque band of claqueurs. (This word has no derivative in French; in English it has originated many.)]
1. a. A small and exclusive party or set, a narrow coterie or circle: a term of reproach or contempt, applied generally to such as are considered to associate for unworthy or selfish ends, or to small and select bodies who arrogate supreme authority in matters of social status, literature, etc.
| 1711 Puckle Club (1817) 30 And from the black art of selling bear-skins arrived to be one of the Clicque. 1833 Coleridge Lett. 8 July, I don't call the London exclusive clique the best English society. 1833 Lytton Eng. & English ii. i. (1840) 253. 1855 O. W. Holmes Poems 225 Choose well your set; our feeble nature seeks The aid of Clubs, the countenance of Cliques. 1862 Shirley Nugæ Criticæ 478 The sectarianism of a religious clique. |
b. Comb., as clique-securing.
| 1857 Toulm. Smith Parish 137 The vicious and clique-securing device of one-third going out each year. |
2. A business ‘ring’. U.S.
| 1855 N.Y. Herald 5 Dec. 3/5 Thousands of shares are held by a small clique of speculators. 1877 Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 4), Clique, a combination of stock-brokers or capitalists, for the purpose of increasing or diminishing the price of stocks, in order to break down the market. 1901 Merwin & Webster Calumet ‘K’ xv. 285 The clique of speculators who held the floor were buying, buying, buying. |
Hence ˈcliquedom, cliquish influence or power. ˈcliqueless a., without or not belonging to a clique. ˈcliquery, the action or conduct of a clique. cliquoˈmania, cliquoˈmaniac (see quot.).
| 1859 Sat. Rev. VIII. 73/1 Cliquerie, in all its lurking places, was subsidized. a 1873 Lytton Ken. Chillingly viii. v. (Hoppe), Heaping additional scorn upon all who are cliqueless. 1879 Baring-Gould Germany II. 330 The small States are the haunts of egoism and cliquedom. 1884 Sat. Rev. 9 Aug. 171 This cliquomania—this notion that a band of fiendish brethren were leagued against him. Ibid. 171/2 The cliquomaniac will sometimes gravely inform his confidant of the exact names of the members of the clique. |
▪ II. clique, v. colloq.
[f. prec.]
To combine in, or act as, a clique. Hence, cliqued (kliːkt), ppl. a.
| 1884 Pall Mall G. 25 Aug. 5/1 He..rose from the position of a mere woodcarving workman, and was not a little cliqued against by the regular students. 1885 Graceville (Minnesota) Transcript 3 Jan. 6/3 Indian corn has been higher, under cliqued holding of light stocks. |