subs. phr. (old).—A bailiff; ‘a member of the hold-fast club’ (B. E. and GROSE); SHOULDER-CLAPPED = arrested.

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  1593.  SHAKESPEARE, Comedy of Errors, iv. 2.

        A back-friend, a SHOULDER-CLAPPER, one that countermandes
The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands.

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  1604.  DEKKER and WEBSTER, Westward Ho! v. 3. What a profane varlet is this SHOULDER-CLAPPER to lie thus upon my wife.

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  1611.  CHAPMAN, May-Day, iv. 2. These … pewter-buttoned SHOULDER-CLAPPERS.

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  1839.  W. H. AINSWORTH, Jack Sheppard (1840), 22. ‘The SHOULDER-CLAPPERS!’ added a lady, who … substituted her husband’s nether habiliments for her own petticoats.

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  1886.  G. A. SALA [Illustrated London News, 19 June, 644]. I do know that a sheriff’s officer used to be called a SHOULDER-CLAPPER.

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