Cliquery

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A social structure characterized by cliques. countable

    "He was a keen observer of manners, and had a wholesome contempt for the little cliqueries which are generally formed by persons of narrow mind and sparse acquirements."

  2. 2
    Cliquishness. uncountable

    "Democracy, Whiggery, and Cliquery will attract their elements and foment divisions among the people, to accomplish fancied schemes and accumulate power, while poverty, driven to despair, like hunger forcing its way through a wall, will break through the statutes of men, to save life and mend the breach in prison glooms."

Example

More examples

"He was a keen observer of manners, and had a wholesome contempt for the little cliqueries which are generally formed by persons of narrow mind and sparse acquirements."

Etymology

From clique + -ery.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.