Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also clack-rattle) the tongue, usu. a woman’s.

1575		Gammer gurtons nedle n.p.: Hodge. Kirstian Clack Tom simsons maid, bithe masse coms hether to morow, / Cham not able to say, betweene vs what may hap.
1594		Greene James IV I i: Haud your clacks, lads, trattle not for thy life, but gather uppe your legs and daunce.
1641		R. Brome Jovial Crew V i: Justice Clack still! He must talk all. His Clack must onely go.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 26 22–30 Nov. 222: The good Women, after they had filled their bellies, and whetted their clacks, began to talke of the sufficiency of their Husbands in the Art of generation.
1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) V 169: As soon as she could make / ’Em hold their clacks these words she spake.
1674		Head Canting Academy (2nd edn) 80: [illegible] was not able her clack for to hold.
1697		M. Pix Innocent Mistress III iv: I know not why she should [...] set her eternal clack a-running upon all my actions.
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 21: Next came a fiercer fiend upon his back, / I mean his spouse, and stunn’d him with her clack.
c.1709		‘The Female Scuffle’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) IV 212: Then Buttocks so bold, / Began for to Scold, / Hurrydan was not able her Clack for to hold.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 156: The Baker [...] was forced to appease her Eternal Clack by paying for her Loss.
1725		J. Sheppard Sheppard in Egypt 17: There was no quieting their Clacks.
1730		J. Gay Wife of Bath (rev. edn) II iv: Their clacks are eternally a going.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
1748		Spy on Mother Midnight I 23: If you were all as much in Want of it as I am, your Clacks would not run so fast.
1771		Smollett Humphrey Clinker (1925) I 69: Lest you should think my scribble as tedious as Mrs. Tabby’s clack.
1780		R. Tomlinson Sl. Pastoral 3: Stop your clack, and be damn’d t’ye and hear me complain.
1799		Sporting Mag. Jan. XIII 223/2: But Tom’s flippant tongue, not his patron escap’d, / As his clack-rattle never stood still.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 197: Deaf, giddy, helpless [...] I hardly hear a woman’s clack.
1825		‘Margate Hoy’ in Universal Songster I 6/1: The men found their stomachs, the women their clacks.
1828		Disraeli Life of Charles I II 23: The feminine gender, who, as washerwomen [...] could not hold their clack.
1834		T. Hood ‘Tylney Hall’ in Works (1862) III 345: None of your clack, madam.
1841		W.J. Neale Paul Periwinkle 475: None of your clack, mister Jupiter Ammon, or I’ll break your nigger head.
1862		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers 2nd series (1880) 50: It warn’t your bullyin’ clack, John, / Provokin’ us to fight.
1872		‘Greeley’s the Boy’ Farmer of Chappaqua Songster 8: Arrah, Dinnis and Pat will be meeting / The boys with most illigant clack.
1896		G.F. Northall Warwickshire Word-Book 48: Clack. [...] (2) A contemptuous epithet for a woman’s tongue.
1901		W. Irwin Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum XIII n.p.: If I were smooth as eels and slick as soap, A baked-wind expert, jolly with my clack.
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 214: Hold your clack.

2. (also clacking) a noisy conversation.

1599		Nashe Praise of the Red Herring 35: Their clacke or gabbling to this purport.
1638		Rowley Shoo-maker, a Gentleman Act IV: You agen, keepe your Clacke, Ile slit your tongue else.
1650		H. Neville Newes from the New Exchange 4: This Lady Sands continues her Clack going ever since, to draw grists to the Mill .
1664		H. Bold Poems 86: And their Wives, they had put them, upon it / They thought, of a Knack, / To silence, the Clack, / That Men, might not tell, when th’ad done it.
1674		The Complaisant companion 27: One who had got a damnable Shrew to his Wife being continually plagued with the perpetual Clack of her Tongue, wished one day, that she was in Heaven.
c.1701		‘A Factious Hypocrite’ in N. Ward Reformer 10: He Talks much, but Does little, and like a Loose-hung Mill, keeps a great Clacking, but Grinds no Grist.
1714		Spectator 5 Nov. n.p.: The women [...] were guzz’ling very comfortably. Mrs. Mayoress clipped the king’s English. Clack was the word.
1748		Smollett Roderick Random (1979) 331: She laboured under such a profusion of talk, that I dreaded her unruly tongue, and felt by anticipation the horrors of an eternal clack!
1753		H. Fielding Elizabeth Canning (2 edn) 44: ‘I desire you will not make a Clack of it, for fear it should be blown’.
1761		E. Thompson Meretriciad 14: A nurse who’s skill’d, in all the Gossip’s clack.
1796		Watty and Meg 4: She’ll clash on / Wi’ her everlasting clack.
1812		H. & J. Smith Rejected Addresses (‘Punch’s Apotheosis’) n.p.: See she twists her mutton fists like Molyneux or Beelzebub, And t’other’s clack, who pats her back, is louder far than Bell’s hubbub [F&H].
1821–5		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 38: I’ll may be live to see a hantle o’ that cleck o’ yours ta’en out o’ ye.
1833		S. Smith Major Downing (1834) 176: Shut up your clack, or I’ll knock your clam-shells together pretty quick.
1834		Westmorland Gaz. 19 July 4/2: Jaw! [...] It has been an everlasting talk — a never-ceasing clack.
1844		J.C. Neal Peter Ploddy and Other Oddities 10: How does he manage to stop his confounded clack long enough to get to sleep.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 349: The place was plumb full of farmers and farmers’ wives, to dinner; and such another clack a body never heard.
1895		‘Harry on ’Arry’ Punch 17 Aug. in P. Marks (2006) 24: O it gives me the very go-nimble to hear their contemptible clack!
1902		H. Baumann ‘Sl. Ditty’ Londinismen (2nd edn) vi: When jawin’ with Julie / Or Mag and ’er Billie, / We shoved down in black / Their iligant clack.
1905		J.M. Synge Well of the Saints Act I: If I didn’t talk I’d be destroyed in a short while listening to the clack you do be making.
1936		‘George Orwell’ Keep The Aspidistra Flying (1962) 69: There was never anything that could properly be called conversation at all; only the stupid clacking that goes on at parties everywhere.
1948		L.T.C. Rolt Sleep No More (1994) 3: The three of us stopped our clacking and stood dumbstruck.

3. whining, whingeing, nagging.

1678		S. Butler Hudibras Pt III canto 2 line 445: And, with his everlasting clack, / Set all men’s ears upon the rack.
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) II 212: Here they sat down, when Nestor’s tongue / Its usual clack began to run.
c.1790		‘Larry’s Stiff’ Luke Caffrey’s Gost 6: De girls de all gother round us; / Dey began to cry and to keen, / Wid dir damnable clack to confound us.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) I 80: Swear you don’t mind the gen’ral’s clack.
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) II 107: Always grumbling and scolding about everything, making the house ring with their clack.
1838		‘The Laundress And Her Ass’ Rambler’s Flash Songster 6: Said his worship, away, I dismiss the affray [...] So get the way back, I’ll hear no more clack.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 227/1: If they come here with all their clack, / we’ll wound them fil fal la ra whack.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 220: When Charley was on his back, and well-nigh ‘used-up,’ Mrs. Sweet’s clack did him more harm than the disease.
1892		H. Lawson ‘Jones’s Alley’ in Roderick (1972) 36: The agent [...] would cut short her reiterated complaints — which he privately called her ‘clack’.
1905		H. Lawson ‘To-Morrow’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 140: O, this is the clack of the Middle Class, / ‘Win back the respect of the People!’.
1915		H. Lawson ‘The Horseshoe & the Clock’ in Roderick (1972) 840: One [brain] to listen to his wife’s everlasting clack with; and another to keep himself from going stark, staring mad with.
1926		Breton & Bevir Adventures of Mrs. May 199: ‘Oh!’ I says when I managed to stop ’er clack. ‘I see the root of yer trouble.’.