clapback

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Clapback is a compound noun version of the slang to clap back. Clapping back is to answer an an opponent’s insult (or a hater’s diss, to be more slang-y) with a much stronger comeback. Much stronger than I know you are, but what am I?

Clapping back comes from the 2003 Ja Rule song “Clap Back,” a diss track aimed at rappers 50 Cent and Eminem. This song uses the older 1990s slang clap, to shoot a gun (the clap the sound the gun makes). In the song, Ja Rule was clapping back, or “firing back,” with words rather than bullets.

The one-word clapback emerged around 2009. It was used in that year (and the very few times before) as a form of the slang from the Ja Rule song.

e to sort of clapback at the haters.

— Cherie (@BKMiss) March 11, 2009

I feel where Kim is coming from but she needs to quit & just focus on her unless Nicki decides to clapback, to much energy being wasted.

— Unfinished Product (@SamJones504) June 9, 2010

It wouldn’t be until 2011–12 that clapback would be more commonly taken up as a compound noun.

Now that's what I call a CLAPBACK

— Emeka Iheme (@MekaGrey) April 12, 2011

she hit the bitch w/ a clapback lol

— Shani (@thestylisttt) February 25, 2012

Clapback gained widespread use in 2015. In that year, for instance, BuzzFeed explained what the word clapback meant using colorful Twitter exchanges between the Kardashian sisters.