Beclap
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To grasp, insnare, ensnare, catch, to trap suddenly, to grab suddenly.
"He so besmouched her, and she so beclapped him, and there tumbling together, as merrie as they would wish, I sighed to thinke, what a supper they would haue after break-fast."
- 2 To clap for; to applaud.
"No one is so beclapped as the author of a popular drama bowing over his own footlights; the artists and romancers of the daily press are modester than they themselves would be willing to admit."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"He so besmouched her, and she so beclapped him, and there tumbling together, as merrie as they would wish, I sighed to thinke, what a supper they would haue after break-fast."
Etymology
From Middle English biclappen (“to grasp, insnare, catch, to trap suddenly, to grab suddenly”). By surface analysis, be- + clap.
From be- + clap.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.