Also 9 clicque, click. [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.)]
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), 25. And from the black art of selling bear-skins, arrived to be one of the clicque.
1822. Edin. Rev., XXXVII. 320. The little spirit of a click, or party.
1833. Coleridge, Lett., 8 July. I don’t call the London exclusive clique the best English society.
1833. Lytton, Eng. & English, II. i. (1874), 85.
1855. O. W. Holmes, Poems, 225. Choose well your set; our feeble nature seeks The aid of Clubs, the countenance of Cliques.
1862. ‘Shirley’ (J. Skelton), Nugæ Crit., 478. The sectarianism of a religious clique is no doubt the most obnoxious.
b. Comb., as clique-securing.
1857. Toulmin Smith, Parish, 137. The vicious and clique-securing device of one-third going out each year.
Hence Cliquedom, cliquish influence or power. Cliqueless a., without or not belonging to a clique. Cliquery, the action or conduct of a clique. Cliquomania, Cliquomaniac (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.
