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Thank you, 99jon & Mark Sand.
I have done all the things I dare do.. I even tried system restore (although am unsure pertinent files in the PSE program would have been affected) but, after around 25 min of the restore process at work got some kind of error to do with virus protection being on (restore points are gone so I think it restored nonetheless..?) anyway it didn't affect clone tool, still as buggy as before.
I've noted many others have had the same issues with Clone from years past to recent and no one (including Adobe rep's) have had a workable answer, so...life goes on 
Thank you, Mark Sand, although I don't use CC (PSE-15) that was a helpful thread.
Mention was made in that thread as to the ALT key itself being a possible issue..although this does not, I believe, have anything to do with PSE's clone tool instability, it gave me an idea to try pressing both the left and right the ALT keys on my laptop simultaneously, and this made the difference! I thought clone was "fixed" but it lasted only a few clicks&paint strokes before each new sampling (little cross-hair) moved further away from the spot I clicked on from which I need to clone.
In the example I'm working with there's a pew that runs along the lower portion of a group shot (groomsmen in front of sanctuary) that has obstructions I'm attempting to remove. The vertical clone/strokes I need to do (bringing pant-leg down to-cover obstruction) were "manageable", however when I tried to sample&paint along a horizontal plane in the same area, the cross-hairs kept popping up in the area I'd clicked previously, up above.
Once again, I reset all that could be reset in PSE, closed it out and restarted. This only served to bring me back to square one, the popup: "Could not use the clone stamp tool because the area to be cloned has not been defined. (Alt-click to define a source point)."
Every which way I've tried to do what it's telling me but this notification keeps popping up.
I have not added any new apps or programs in the past month or more. I keep my system clean and updated regularly. As I said I have been using clone tool for 15 years, across several PSE programs and a few pc's with no problems. I'm in the midst of processing a wedding shoot I did for a friend when this issue showed up. Clone worked great in the am, by afternoon it tanked. No rhyme no reason 
Thanks all!
Hahaha.....no
-but I'd forgotten the greatness of spot healing brush, actually faster for the odd cleanups..so that has been a saving grace. There's a whole lot more I don't know about what's in this program than I do...or have cared to learn (sigh)
Soooo..
On the laptop I am now using (refurb old Dell I've had less than a year after previous pc had an "accident"..) there are 2 sets of left/right click keys available to the user..(it would seem)
This keyboard is different from the old one. Where I used the "main" (lower) left-click key with alt on my previous laptop, this one has a left-click key just under the alt key.
Just now as I was editing I needed a more precise covering that only clone, as I used to use it, could do. So I tried again, only this time using the lower left click key, as on my old laptop (which did not previously work) and walah! Back to cloning precision joy. I hope this is it!
I still get the "Could not use the clone stamp tool..." several times over on newly opened files...I forget how I get rid of it but I do 
..with fingers crossed ~
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