"clap back" meaning in English

See clap back in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-clap back.wav Forms: claps back [present, singular, third-person], clapping back [participle, present], clapped back [participle, past], clapped back [past]
Etymology: From clap (“to shoot (somebody) with a gun”) + back. Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} clap back (third-person singular simple present claps back, present participle clapping back, simple past and past participle clapped back)
  1. (originally African-American Vernacular, informal, intransitive) To make a witty or sarcastic retort. Wikipedia link: Merriam-Webster Tags: informal, intransitive Derived forms: clapback [noun]

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "From clap (“to shoot (somebody) with a gun”) + back.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "claps back",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "clapping back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "clapped back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "clapped back",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "clap back (third-person singular simple present claps back, present participle clapping back, simple past and past participle clapped back)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "African-American Vernacular English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs formed with \"back\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "noun"
          ],
          "word": "clapback"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2019 September 24, Karen Zraick, “Greta Thunberg, After Pointed U.N. Speech, Faces Attacks From the Right”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-06-04:",
          "text": "On Monday night, President Trump tweeted a clip of Ms. Thunberg's speech, along with a message many believed to be sarcastic. \"She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future,\" he wrote. \"So nice to see!\" Ms. Thunberg, who has nearly two million Twitter followers of her own, clapped back in her bio, which had been changed on Tuesday: \"A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To make a witty or sarcastic retort."
      ],
      "id": "en-clap_back-en-verb-c4QSupNI",
      "links": [
        [
          "wit",
          "wit"
        ],
        [
          "sarcastic",
          "sarcastic"
        ],
        [
          "retort",
          "retort"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(originally African-American Vernacular, informal, intransitive) To make a witty or sarcastic retort."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal",
        "intransitive"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Merriam-Webster"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-clap back.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-clap_back.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-clap_back.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-clap_back.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-clap_back.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "clap back"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "noun"
      ],
      "word": "clapback"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From clap (“to shoot (somebody) with a gun”) + back.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "claps back",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "clapping back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "clapped back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "clapped back",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "clap back (third-person singular simple present claps back, present participle clapping back, simple past and past participle clapped back)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "African-American Vernacular English",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English informal terms",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrasal verbs",
        "English phrasal verbs formed with \"back\"",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2019 September 24, Karen Zraick, “Greta Thunberg, After Pointed U.N. Speech, Faces Attacks From the Right”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-06-04:",
          "text": "On Monday night, President Trump tweeted a clip of Ms. Thunberg's speech, along with a message many believed to be sarcastic. \"She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future,\" he wrote. \"So nice to see!\" Ms. Thunberg, who has nearly two million Twitter followers of her own, clapped back in her bio, which had been changed on Tuesday: \"A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To make a witty or sarcastic retort."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "wit",
          "wit"
        ],
        [
          "sarcastic",
          "sarcastic"
        ],
        [
          "retort",
          "retort"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(originally African-American Vernacular, informal, intransitive) To make a witty or sarcastic retort."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal",
        "intransitive"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Merriam-Webster"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-clap back.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-clap_back.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-clap_back.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-clap_back.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-clap_back.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "clap back"
}

Download raw JSONL data for clap back meaning in English (2.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-11-21 using wiktextract (65a6e81 and 0dbea76). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.