Origin: 1705–15; < French, apparently metaphorical use of Middle Frenchclique latch, or noun derivative of cliquer to make noise, resound, imitative word parallel to click1
Related forms
clique·less, adjective
cli·quey, cli·quy, adjective
cli·quism, noun
sub·clique, noun
Can be confused: 1. claque, clique ; 2. click, clique.
mathematics A maximaltotally connectedsubgraph. Given a graph with nodes N, a clique C is a subset of N where every node in C is directly connected to every other node in C (i.e. C is totally connected), and C contains all such nodes (C is maximal). In other words, a clique contains all, and only, those nodes which are directly connected to all other nodes in the clique. [Is this correct?] (1996-09-22)