cliquish

adjective

cliqu·​ish ˈkli-kish 

ˈklē-

variants or less commonly cliqueish

1

: tending toward narrow exclusiveness or to form a clique

cliquish attitudes developed among children coming from the fashionable west side

newly arrived immigrants tend to be cliquish for a while

2

: marked by a tendency to divide into cliques

ballet companies by reputation are … cliquish

—Al Hine

cliquishly adverb

Cliquishly removed from everyone else, these four misshapen heroes maintained their mutual connection through ironic code …

—Frazier Moore, Portsmouth (Ohio) Daily Times, 8 Oct. 2001

cliquishness noun

There is a slight sense of Southern cliquishness—understandable, I suppose, in a Virginia magazine, and not so hard to take when it involves the likes of Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor and Peter Taylor.

—Daniel Stern, New York Times Book Review, 19 Jan. 1986

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