Backpat

No backpats are handed out and no compliments.

We are actually just re-creating the reassuring backpats our mothers gave us when we were babies; one of our hands symbolically represents the performer’s back while our other hand pats our approval into it.[…]Even the British Royal Wave and the Papal Wave are backpats, symbolic reassurances directed at large, anxious and, presumably, infantile crowds.

Kathe Rafferty is getting backpats and bouquets from pals learning that she has put out a shingle for hew new firm, Corporate Presence, purveying such services as publicity, event planning and fund-raising.

Barney has always backpatted himself that he is without an equal on the dirt track.

Twenty-three members of the Class, an appropriate number, duly observed the passing of the Nass and backpatted outgoing Class officials when it was announced that the treasury was solvent again.

For its smooth use of the Americanism “passing the buck,” we recently backpatted Desoutter, British maker of portable tools.

Every obscure clodhopper who stumbles to work at daybreak finds himself backpatted by a kompadre whom he has never seen before.