1. Plural of clitic; words or word elements that are phonologically dependent on an adjacent word and typically lack independent stress or accent.
Usage: linguistics; technical term

Examples

• In English, the contracted forms like 's in 'he's' and 't in 'don't' are clitics attached to their host words.
• Many Romance languages use clitics to mark object pronouns, which appear before or after the verb.
• Linguists study how clitics differ from affixes and independent words in their phonological behavior.
• The placement of clitics varies significantly across different languages and dialects.
• Clitics often create challenges for language learners because they don't follow the same rules as regular words.