1. (with pl.) A trick or device to catch applause; an expression designed to elicit applause.
1727–31. Bailey, II. A Clap Trap … a trap to catch a clap by way of applause from the spectators at a play.
1788. Dibdin, Musical Tour, lxiii. 161. Sentiments which, by the theatrical people, are known by the name of clap traps.
1799. Southey, Lett. (1856), I. 67. There will be no clap-traps—no loyalty—nothing about ‘Britannia rule the Waves.’
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, xx. Don’t … vent claptraps about your own virtue.
2. (without a or pl.) Language designed to catch applause; cheap showy sentiment.
1819. Byron, Juan, II. cxxiv. I hate … that air Of clap-trap, which your recent poets prize.
1880. Disraeli, Endym., lvii. 253. He disdained all cant and clap-trap.
3. A mechanical contrivance for making a clapping noise to express applause, etc. Obs.
1847. Craig, Clap-trap … a kind of clapper for making a noise in theatres.
1864. Webster, Clap-trap, a contrivance for clapping in theaters.
1866. Cincinnati Gaz., in Public Opinion, 24 Feb., 207/1. A street juggler … sings some ditty to the sound of clap-traps which he swings or works in his hand.
4. attrib. (in senses 1, 2), passing into true adjectival use; = claptrappy.
1815. Scribbleomania, 124, note. The Clap-Trap system which he has uniformly adopted during … his theatrical career.
1842. G. S. Faber, Provinc. Lett. (1844), II. 187. They triumphantly draw the clap-trap conclusion, that [etc.].
1855. Brimley, Ess. Tennyson, 74. Claptrap appeals to the war-feeling of the day.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), II. 371. A regular clap-trap speaker.
1887. Spectator, 7 May, 622/1. The subject is more or less clap-trap.
Hence Claptrappery, Claptrappish a., Claptrappy a., -ily adv.; all nonce-wds.
1820. Coleridge, Lett., I. xi. 118. Her plebicolar Clap-Trapperies.
1880. Punch, 27 Dec., 306/2. Till ‘Goodwill’ sound verily, Cheerily, not claptrappily.
1809. Southey, in C. Southey, Life, III. 205. Did I not tell you it [a passage in Kehama] was clap-trappish?
1865. Reader, 2 Dec., 636/2. The language being either claptrappish or vapid.
1873. Spectator, 4 Oct., 1234/2. Mr. Chamberlain’s clap-trappy programme of a Free Church, a Free School, Free Labour, and Free Land.
