clapboard

[klab-erd, klap-bawrd, ‐bohrd]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR clapboard ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

Chiefly Northeastern U.S. a long, thin board, thicker along one edge than the other, used in covering the outer walls of buildings, being laid horizontally, the thick edge of each board overlapping the thin edge of the board below it.

British. a size of oak board used for making barrel staves and for wainscoting.

adjective

of or made of clapboard: a clapboard house.

Origin of clapboard

1510–20; earlier clap bord, alteration of obsolete clapholt < Low German klappholt (cognate with Dutch klaphout) split wood used for barrel staves; see clap¹, holt

clapboard

[klap-bawrd, -bohrd]

noun Movies.

a small board with a hinged stick attached that is clapped down at the beginning of the filming of a shot for use later in synchronizing sound and image in the editing of the film.

Origin of clapboard

clap¹ + board

Also called clapper board, clap·stick

[klap-stik] /ˈklæpˌstɪk/.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for clapboard

board, frame, log, peg, plant, slab, timber, woody, ligneous, timbered

Examples from the Web for clapboard

Contemporary Examples of clapboard

The taxi trundles away from the train station passing rows of gray houses with clapboard shutters into the French countryside.
How the French Do Detox: Inside France’s Most Star-Studded Wellness Retreat
Brandon Presser
October 8, 2014

Historical Examples of clapboard

The Virginians dropped all thought of sassafras and clapboard.
Pioneers of the Old South
Mary Johnston
Under a sign, "Hotel," he entered a door in a clapboard house.
The U.P. Trail
Zane Grey
It was a lost fragment of clapboard about four feet long, and with no house to it.
Harper's Young People, July 19, 1881
Various
He had men getting cedar, walnut and clapboard for buildings.
The Pocahontas-John Smith Story
Pocahontas Wight Edmunds
It was a clapboard structure covered with a reed roof, and eighteen by thirty feet in size.
The Old Furniture Book
N. Hudson Moore

British Dictionary definitions for clapboard

clapboard

noun

a long thin timber board with one edge thicker than the other, used esp in the US and Canada in wood-frame construction by lapping each board over the one below
(as modifier)a clapboard house

verb

(tr) to cover with such boards

Word Origin for clapboard

C16: partial translation of Low German klappholt, from klappen to crack + holt wood; related to Dutch claphout; see board

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for clapboard

1520s, partial translation of Middle Dutch klapholt (borrowed into English late 14c. as clapholt), from klappen "to fit" + Low German holt "wood, board" (see holt). Cf. German Klappholz. Originally small boards of split oak, imported from northern Germany and cut by coopers to make barrel staves; the meaning "long, thin board used for roofing or to cover the exterior of wooden buildings" is from 1640s, American English.