different between clack vs plack

English

Etymology

From Middle English clacken, clakken, claken, from Old English *clacian (“to slap, clap, clack”), from Proto-Germanic *klak?n? (“to clap, chirp”). Cognate with Scots clake, claik (“to utter cries", also "to bedaub, sully with a sticky substance”), Dutch klakken (“to clack, crack”), Low German klakken (“to slap on, daub”), Norwegian klakke (“to clack, strike, knock”), Icelandic klaka (“to twitter, chatter, wrangle, dispute”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klæk/

Noun

clack (plural clacks)

1. An abrupt, sharp sound, especially one made by two hard objects colliding repetitively; a sound midway between a click and a clunk.
2. Anything that causes a clacking noise, such as the clapper of a mill, or a clack valve.
3. Chatter; prattle.

   • whose chief intent is to vaunt his spiritual clack

4. (colloquial) The tongue.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

clack (third-person singular simple present clacks, present participle clacking, simple past and past participle clacked)

1. (intransitive) To make a sudden, sharp noise, or succession of noises; to click.
2. (transitive) To cause to make a sudden, sharp noise, or succession of noises; to click.
3. To chatter or babble; to utter rapidly without consideration.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Feltham to this entry?)
4. (Britain) To cut the sheep's mark off (wool), to make the wool weigh less and thus yield less duty.
5. Dated form of cluck.
   • 1934, Gladys Bagg Taber, Late Climbs the Sun (page 30)

     Only the chickens clacked at the Saturday quiet and fat mouse-minded cats licked whiskers on the empty steps.

   • 1964, Frances Margaret Cheadle McGuire, Gardens of Italy (page 57)

     We drive on between meadows of mown grass, through a pergola of vines, and so to an orchard of peaches, apples, and pears and a hen colony housed in neat modern cottages, the chickens clacking and scratching away […]

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /plæk/, [p?l?æk]
• (UK) IPA^(key): /plak/, [p?l?ak]

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch placke (“name of a coin”). Cognate with Old High German pleh, bleh (“thin leaf of metal, plate”). Compare plaque.

Noun

plack (plural placks)

1. (obsolete) A coin used in the Netherlands in the 15th and 16th centuries. [15th-17th c.]
2. (Scotland, Northern England, historical) A coin issued by James III of Scotland; also a 15th-16th century Scottish coin worth four Scots pennies. [from 15th c.]
   • 1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Oxford 2010, p. 49:

     ‘Yes, I prayed you to grant my life, which is in your power. The saving of it would not have cost you a plack, yet you refused to do it.’

Etymology 2

Noun

plack

1. Misspelling of plaque.

Scots

Etymology

Probably from West Flemish placke (“small coin”), related to French plaque, Medieval Latin placa. See English plaque.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /plak/

Noun

plack (plural placks)

1. (historical) plack

   And than, besides his valiant acts, / At bridals he won many placks. (Robert Sempill, ‘The Piper of Kilbarchan’)