claque

American  

[klak] / klæk /

noun

1. a group of persons hired to applaud an act or performer.

2. a group of sycophants.

   The agency head was applauded, as always, by a claque of appointees.

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claque British  

/ klæk /

noun

1. a group of people hired to applaud

2. a group of fawning admirers

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Etymology

Origin of claque

First recorded in 1860–65; from French, derivative of claquer “to clap”

Example Sentences

Beginning as a feud between culturally ambitious game critics and a claque of revanchist fans, Gamergate became a free-floating snowball of grievance.

From The Verge • Dec. 12, 2019

There’s a claque alongside to cheer the big boss and deride his doubters.

From The New Yorker • Jan. 13, 2017

He enrolled at the Kunstakademie, an avant-garde hotbed soon dominated by Joseph Beuys, the shamanistic godfather of conceptualism—although Richter was always highly skeptical of the hero-worshipping claque Beuys gathered around himself.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 14, 2016

Geller and her claque pretend that they are the beleaguered defenders of a dire threat to 1st Amendment guarantees of free speech.

From Los Angeles Times • May 5, 2015

Then he proceeded to mimic the way I spoke, giving me what he perceived to be a Gcaleka accent, at which his own claque laughed heartily.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela