- the act of hatching; a brood or litter. An early awareness of conservation issues is shown in the following quotation from The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland (1592):
The... solane geis being sua yeirlie slayne... ar maid vnhable to clek young birdis.
The word is clearly used in the sense of litter of young in J. Christie's article in the Banffshire Journal (22 May 1906):
An' whaur's the cattie wi' her cleckin?
and again in John Galt's Annals of the Parish (1821):
She had set her mind on a clecking of pigs.
In some areas cleckin is used exclusively of hatching eggs and there may be some overlap with Clock. For a doo's cleckin see Doo.