Claptrap
noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Empty verbiage or nonsense. countable, uncountable
"Klein diagnoses impressively what hasn’t worked. No more claptrap about fracked gas as a bridge to renewables. Enough already of the international summit meetings that produce sirocco-quality hot air, and nonbinding agreements that bind us all to more emissions."
- 2 pompous or pretentious talk or writing wordnet
- 3 A device for producing a clapping sound in theaters. countable, historical, uncountable
- 4 A device or trick to gain applause; a humbug. countable, uncountable
"There had been a suggestion that the child should be with her [while she answers the door], but the mother herself had rejected this. "It would be stagey," she had said, "and clap-trap. There is nothing I hate so much as that.""
Example
More examples"The mayor and his companion have been uttering a lot of claptrap to the citizens for a long time."
Etymology
Theater slang, c. 1730, from clap + trap, referring to theatrical techniques or gags used to incite applause.
More for "claptrap"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.