cluck, you dumb

   Used mainly in American rather than British speech to refer to a stupid person. ‘Cluck’ has that meaning on its own, but ‘dumb cluck’ is very much a standard phrase. The form of the word suggests that it is linked with a clucking hen, but it is more likely to be a corruption of the Yiddish klutz, used of an inept blockhead. ‘You dumb cluck’ occurs insultingly in Within and Without, by John Harvey. In Moviola, by Garson Kanin, a woman says to a man who is about to close the door of her dressing-room: ‘Leave it open, you cluck.’