Word of The Day, March 12. CLAPTRAP //KLAP-trap//. Noun. 1. pretentious but insincere or empty language: His speeches seem erudite but analysis reveals them to be mere claptrap. 2. any artifice or expedient for winning applause or impressing the public. Examples: What is she to sneer at a brave, enduring race of fellow-beings! Dress them in tawdry rags, locate them anywhere on the continent, write out their history in sounding claptrap, and she would be stirred by pathetic thrills. -- John Trafford Clegg, Davids Loom: a story of Rochdales life in the early years of the nineteenth century, 1894 ...it was on the whole an enormous piece of claptrap; the room, almost vacant when I entered, began to fill. -- Charotte Brontë, Villette, 1853. #tizxonet™
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 10:45:48 +0000
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