Etymology: < Anglo-Norman cliket, cleket, clequet, kliket and Middle French cliquet, clicquet leper's rattle, clap-dish (c1230 in Old French), latch, bolt (both 13th cent.), clapper of a mill (early 14th cent.), chatter, nattering (late 14th cent.), (plural) a type of rattle or castanet (c1400), lid of a container (1451) < Old French cliketer clicket v. Compare French cliquet pawl, clicking noise, cliquette rattle. Compare post-classical Latin clikettum (from 1275 in British sources), cliquetus (1416 in a continental source; < French). Compare clicket v.The sense of kliket in the following passage is uncertain:a1425 in W. H. Hulme Middle-Eng. Harrowing of Hell (1907) p. xxv [A good horse is] Tayled as fox; Comly as a kyng; Nekkyd as a dukyng; Mowythyd as a kliket.It has been seen as showing an otherwise unattested sense ‘fox’ (or more specifically ‘vixen in heat’), and connected with later clicket v. 3, but this is not straightforward semantically (since it is unclear why a mouth like that of a fox would be desirable in a horse). The passage has alternatively been interpreted as showing sense 3a, with apparent reference to the champing of a horse's teeth; perhaps compare sense 3c for later use with reference to the mouth. Compare also the following slightly earlier example in a Latin linguistic context, although it is unclear whether this should be taken as showing a Middle English example of sense 1 or as showing the Anglo-Norman word:1331–2 Norwich Sacrist Roll in J. T. Fowler Extracts Acct. Rolls Abbey of Durham (1901) III. 904 (Gloss.) In uno cliket ad hostium.

Etymology: Originally < clicket n. In later use probably also partly < Middle French, French cliqueter to make a clicking noise (c1230 in Old French as kliketer with allusion to a leper's rattle or clap-dish), to cackle (late 15th cent.) < cliquer (see click v.¹) + -eter, frequentative suffix.The development of sense 3 is unclear; it does not appear to be paralleled in French. It may perhaps be an extended use of sense 2, with allusion to the distinctive noises made by foxes when mating (compare quot. 1575¹ for clicketing n. and adj. at Derivatives).