A word that is grammatically dependent and pronounced as part of another word, like 'n't in 'don't' or ''s in 'it's'.
From Greek 'klitikos' (leaning), based on 'klinein' (to lean). Linguistic term popularized in 20th-century grammar studies.
Clitics are the freeloaders of language—they're too grammatically weak to stand alone but clever enough to attach themselves to nearby words, and every language has them hiding in plain sight, doing essential grammatical work.
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