Backslap
verb ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To enthusiastically affirm or congratulate a person, especially by patting them on the back.
"In public he put on a performance that was at once outraged and outrageous, but usually he did not carry grudges into his private life. Exuding the backslapping air of a socializer who loved to gamble and drink, he could not understand why people whose careers he had ruined and publicly ridiculed would be hostile to his friendly advances."
- 2 display excessive cordiality (towards) wordnet
Example
More examples"In public he put on a performance that was at once outraged and outrageous, but usually he did not carry grudges into his private life. Exuding the backslapping air of a socializer who loved to gamble and drink, he could not understand why people whose careers he had ruined and publicly ridiculed would be hostile to his friendly advances."
Etymology
From back + slap.
More for "backslap"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.