Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US, also kluck) a dull, stupid person (with the brains of a chicken).

1906		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 28: This guy O’Brien is a ‘cluck.’ Take it from me.
1916		J. Lait ‘The Gangster’s Elegy’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 248: Gene, who ain’t nobody’s cluck, can take that or leave it.
1922		Appleton Post-Crescent (WI) 29 Apr. 7/2: Flapper Dictionary cluck – A girl who is a clumsy dancer.
1929		J. Lait Broadway Melody 32: I could use the blonde. But the other cluck is—out!
1936		Wodehouse Young Men in Spats 18: ‘[W]e found her alone in her apartment with this pie-faced cluck’.
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 80: I am just a big dumb cluck with no brains.
1938		J. Weidman I Can Get It For You Wholesale 112: It felt strange to be thankful for the arrival of a kluck like Meyer Babushkin.
1941		J.M. Cain Mildred Pierce (1985) 345: In addition to being dirty bastards, and very dumb clucks, they are also goddam liars.
1951		S. Lewis World So Wide 1: It’s his cluck of a wife that really gets me down [...] always criticizing some poor bunny.
1959		A. Sinclair My Friend Judas (1963) 14: Only the dumb clucks can say they’re grateful and mean it.
1963		in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 58: No matter what kind of cluck he [i.e. a police chief] is he can tell a guy with brains what to do.
1975		J. Carr Bad (1995) 53: The dude was a real cluck.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 85: God, willya help me with poor, dumb Oirish clucks.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 85: You’re not a cluck selling real estate in Peru, Indiana.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1920		T. Thursday ‘Mr. Mister’ in All-Story Weekly 22 May 🌐 This here Chesterfield flipper has a cluck sound to his make-up somewhere.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 17 Mar. [synd. col.] The cluck colyumer who is playing into the paws of the enemy by falling for [...] stuff comorting to Goebbels.

3. a general term of address.

1945

L. Hoban ‘Time to Kill’ Crack Detective Jan. 🌐 ‘How did you figure that angle out, Casso?’ ‘Just figuring it safe, cluck.’.

4. (US) an egg.

1960, 1975

Wentworth & Flexner DAS 111/2: cluck and grunt Eggs and ham.