Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Pretentious, insincere, or empty language: "I hate ... that air/Of claptrap, which your recent poets prize” ( Byron).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A contrivance for clapping in theaters.
- n. Figuratively, an artifice or device to elicit applause or gain popularity; deceptive show or pretense.
- Designing or designed merely to win approval or catch applause.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete A contrivance for clapping in theaters.
- n. A trick or device to gain applause, especially pretentious but empty rhetoric; humbug.
- adj. Contrived for the purpose of making a show, or gaining applause; deceptive; unreal.
WordNet 3.0
- n. pompous or pretentious talk or writing
Etymologies
- Theater slang, c. 1730, from clap and trap, referring to theatrical techniques or gags used to incite applause. (Wiktionary)
- Obsolete claptrap, a theatrical trick to win applause : clap1 + trap1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Trying to shame me with religious claptrap is less useful than tits on a boar.”
Think Progress » Democratic Offices Vandalized In Days Surrounding Health Care Vote
“For those who believe this claptrap from the likes of Al Gore and his climate change scientific wizards, than go right now and junk your vehicles and walk, move out of your carbon polluting homes and live in a tent or find a cave.”
“This claptrap is ideological, rigid and disconnected from reality:”
The Huffington Post: Jonathan Lewis: Mosquitoes and Markets Don't mix
“This claptrap is ideological, rigid and disconnected from reality.”
The Huffington Post: Jonathan Lewis: Mosquitoes and Markets Don't mix
“If I understand Dispensational theology (and that may not even be possible, given the inherent contradictions and outright nonsense with which such premillennial claptrap is imbued), the coming of the "anti-Christ" should be a good thing, since it presages The Rapture, wherein the Righteous are bodily ascended into heaven, leaving the rest of us heathens and unbelievers to live in peace, once and for all.”
Discourse.net: New Low For McCain Campaign: Obama == The Anti-Christ
“But how do we know that this tells us any more than that a large pile of illogical claptrap is related to a small pile of neurons?”
“Whoever writes this claptrap is truly stupid – and you are doubly stupid for reporting it.”
“Why the need for this emotive claptrap, which is mostly not actually relevant to the comments here?”
Buzz Aldrin Says We Can Get to Mars by 2019 | Universe Today
“(This is the meaning of the word "claptrap" BTW; claptrap is a planted line you are forced to applaud for.)”
“White flag of surrender" is the kind of claptrap that even NASCAR dads reject at this point.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘claptrap’.
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This is not a list
you know that thing where the Eskimos have 50 words for snow?
little white lie, big lie, the Big Lie, economical with t..., muddy the waters, fabrication, deception, lies, damned lies..., façade, slander, omission, web of lies and 159 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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The weird, the wonderful and the plai...
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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It's a trap
trap, gin, snare, deadfall, trapezium, trapezoid, trappist, venus flytrap, foothold trap, trapping pit, glue trap, trap set and 98 more...
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Reduples
Go for it, brothers and sisters! I personally have been suffering long for lack of an open reduplicatives list
happy clappy, bribble-brabble, diddle-daddle, hugger-mugger, kikiriki, Bora-Bora, mahi-mahi, jingle-jangle, knick-knack paddy..., chit-chat, bon-bon, clapperclaw and 292 more...
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Your Mission: Find theTraps
List of words that contain the letter string *trap*. Some are obvious and apparent, such as trapezoid, while others are a bit less apparent, such as contrapuntist, ultraphysical, and intraperitoneal.
trapezoid, contrapuntist, wentletrap, allotetraploid, bootstrap, caltrap, unstrap, Trappist, ultraphysical, trapline, Trapt, autotetraploidy and 195 more...
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apt
apt, rapt, inapt, leapt, aptitude, chapter, capture, rapture, velociraptor, captivate, captious, caption and 77 more...
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Various Traps
fixed-gear weirs, purse seiners, mid-water trawlers, lobster pot, mousetrap, 419 scam, buffalo jump, venus flytrap, sticky paper, deadfall, pitfall, catch 22 and 39 more...
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Choi inspired
Fun words my friend loves and others I introduced to him.
Namby-pamby, Niminy piminy, Nitpick, Nit-wit, Piggly-wiggly, Ping-pong, Pitter-patter, Raggle-taggle, Riff-raff, zoot suit, zig-zag, wishy-washy and 73 more...
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Trash Talk
Words that indicate meaningless, confusing or deceptive talk.
white noise, blarney, pidgin, jabber, bullshit, yadda yadda yadda, mishmash, farrago, gobbledygook, yammer, drivel, jargon and 18 more...
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Expressions of disbelief or disagreement
bollocks, come off it, rubbish, as if, bullshit, guff, i don't believe it, are you mad, tosh, nonsense, garbage, bunkum and 58 more...
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Fun Words
Words that are fun to say....
gobbledygook, jings, crivens, hullabaloo, wheech, brouhaha, pizzazz, harum-scarum, namby-pamby, pussyfoot, frippery, pitter-patter and 333 more...
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ICE
quincunx, adoxography, panjundrum, breloque, surd, scripturient, rousant, favrile, embouchure, aquarelle, griffonage, sussultatory and 234 more...
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cxfx's list
callipygous, scaphism, ubermorgen, handschuhschneeba..., farctate, autohagiography, autolatry, spindrift, feculent, verisimilitude, brobdingnagian, ineluctable and 205 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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seventhspice's Words
supine, distaff, lest, janissary, articulator, chaos, scrumptious, charlatan, alacrity, papyrus, corollary, funicular and 106 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for claptrap.
qroqqa As a publisher once told H. L. Mencken, “there are four kinds of books that never, under any circumstances, lose money in the United States—first, detective stories, secondly, novels in which the heroine is forcibly debauched by the hero; thirdly, volumes on spiritualism, occultism, and other claptrap, and fourthly, books on Lincoln.�?
—via 3 Quarks Daily
My god! The plot of my bestseller drops into my lap like a ripe plum. The ghost of Lincoln debauches Nancy Drew.
Aug 14, 2009
whichbe It's a trap. Oct 7, 2008
yarb Citation on leucotomise. Sep 28, 2008
missanthropist Nonsense, lies, exaggeration, bs 1950's slang. Jul 16, 2008
arby also spelled clap-trap Feb 15, 2007