Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who applauds.
  • noun The tongue of a bell.
  • noun Slang The tongue of a garrulous person.
  • noun Two flat pieces of wood held between the fingers and struck together rhythmically.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In botany, the auricle in hepatics. See auricle, 3 .
  • noun See claper.
  • noun Something which claps or strikes with a loud, sharp noise.
  • noun The cover of a clack-dish.
  • noun The piece of wood or metal which strikes the hopper of a mill.
  • noun In medieval churches, a wooden rattle used as a summons to prayers on the last three days of Holy Week, when it was customary for the church bells to remain silent. Also called clap.
  • noun A clack or windmill for frightening birds.
  • noun plural Pieces of wood or bone to be held between the fingers and struck together rhythmically; the bones.
  • noun The knocker of a door.
  • noun One who claps, especially one who applauds by clapping the hands.
  • noun A clack-valve.
  • noun plural A pair of iron plates used to hold fine steel springs while being hardened.
  • noun A plank laid across a running stream as a substitute for a bridge.
  • noun plural Warrenpales or -walls.
  • noun The tongue.
  • To clap; make a clattering noise.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A rabbit burrow.
  • noun A person who claps.
  • noun That which strikes or claps, as the tongue of a bell, or the piece of wood that strikes a mill hopper, etc. See Illust. of Bell.
  • noun (Zoöl.) an Americam species of rail (Rallus scepitans).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An object so suspended inside a bell that it may hit the bell and cause it to ring.
  • noun A wooden mechanical device used as a scarecrow; bird-scaring rattle, a wind-rattle or a wind-clapper.
  • verb transitive To ring a bell by pulling a rope attached to the clapper.
  • noun obsolete A rabbit burrow.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who applauds
  • noun metal striker that hangs inside a bell and makes a sound by hitting the side
  • noun a mobile mass of muscular tissue covered with mucous membrane and located in the oral cavity

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

clap +‎ -er

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French clapier.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word clapper.

Examples

  • The rail of the saltmarshes, the clapper, which is more commonly heard than seen.

    Tidal marsh 2007

  • An '' er tongue, it jes rattle lak a clapper in a bell.

    Negro Folk Rhymes Wise and Otherwise: With a Study Thomas Washington Talley

  • Her sense of ruin was like lead, but was somehow the cause of exultation in her heart as the clapper is the cause of the peal of a bell.

    The Judge Rebecca West 1937

  • For Hugo of Saint Victor the clapper is the tongue of the officiating priest, which strikes the two sides of the vase and announces thus, at the same time, the truth of the two Testaments.

    Là-bas Keene [Translator] Wallace 1877

  • The rise of solid-state tapeless shooting has seen a subsequent reinvention of the role we might traditionally have known as the clapper-loader.

    unknown title 2009

  • You'll note the white veil upon the cross, and the use of the "clapper" instead of the bells at the consecration.

    Holy Thursday from Ss. Trinita, Rome 2009

  • With the high level of enthusiasm of most New York burlesque audiences, the "clapper" costumes wouldn't make it through the first 20 seconds of a number!

    Archive 2008-12-01 Burlesque Daily 2008

  • With the high level of enthusiasm of most New York burlesque audiences, the "clapper" costumes wouldn't make it through the first 20 seconds of a number!

    Panties of the Middle East Burlesque Daily 2008

  • And I recommend maybe getting a "clapper" for your vibrator if you can't buy a bag from Sara.

    Fortune Cookie Omen's, a surprise (naughty) gift and dying by fire! Elizabeth McClung 2008

  • Cannon has an electronic "clapper" in her apartment probably cutting edge high-tech in those days.

    From Fred Blosser THE BURGLARS Ed Gorman 2007

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Randle Cotgrave’s "A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues of 1611." He says clapier is French for a “clapper of conies�? (coney being the usual word at the time for an adult rabbit), “a heap of stones &c., whereinto they retire themselves; or (as our clapper), a court walled about, and full of nests or boards, or stones, for tame conies.

    September 19, 2007

  • A bunny house?

    September 19, 2007

  • Yup.... I wouldn't mind having a "court walled about, and full of nests" of my own, sometimes to snuggle into.

    September 19, 2007

  • Right! Sure does sound cozy.

    September 19, 2007

  • The connection you draw, npydyuan, between this word and rabbits is interesting to me on a personal note. For I am called Clapper, and rabbits have played some role in my life from birth up to the present. Perhaps you had a particular audience in mind for this post?

    October 10, 2007

  • Perrrrhaaaaaps.... But you can't prove a thing!

    October 10, 2007

  • In glassmaking, a tool consisting of two rectangular pieces of wood joined at one end by a leather hinge. An aperture in one of the pieces of wood holds the stem of a goblet or wine glass while it is being made. The clapper is also used to squeeze a blob of glass to form the foot.

    November 9, 2007

  • O Columbine, open your folded wrapper,

    Where two twin turtledoves dwell!

    O Cuckoo pint, toll me the purple clapper

    That hangs in your clear green bell!

    - John Ingelow, 'Seven Times One'.

    November 1, 2008