backpat

See also: back pat and back-pat

English

Noun

backpat (plural backpats)

1. Alternative form of back-pat
   • 1931 April 13, Florabel Muir, “Cutter Assists Star, Gives Her Bad Words Exit”, in Daily News, volume 12, number 249, New York, N.Y., page 32:

     No backpats are handed out and no compliments.

   • 1972 March 13, Linda Wolfe, “Up from the ‘Ape’”, in New York, volume 5, number 11, page 76:

     We are actually just re-creating the reassuring backpats our mothers gave us when we were babies; one of our hands symbolically represents the performer’s back while our other hand pats our approval into it. […] Even the British Royal Wave and the Papal Wave are backpats, symbolic reassurances directed at large, anxious and, presumably, infantile crowds.

   • 1988 May 14, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, volume 110, number 135, page 1D:

     Kathe Rafferty is getting backpats and bouquets from pals learning that she has put out a shingle for hew new firm, Corporate Presence, purveying such services as publicity, event planning and fund-raising.

Verb

backpat (third-person singular simple present backpats, present participle backpatting, simple past and past participle backpatted)

1. Alternative form of back-pat
   • 1911 February 19, “Racing Records Revised by A. A. A. De Palma and Oldfield Each Hold Thirteen Marks—Harroun Leads on Speedway.”, in The New York Times, volume LX, number 19,384, New York, N.Y., page 8, column 2:

     Barney has always backpatted himself that he is without an equal on the dirt track.

   • 1937 July 2, Princeton Alumni Weekly, volume XXXVII, number 36, page 810, column 2:

     Twenty-three members of the Class, an appropriate number, duly observed the passing of the Nass and backpatted outgoing Class officials when it was announced that the treasury was solvent again.

   • 1944, Iron Age, page 86:

     For its smooth use of the Americanism “passing the buck,” we recently backpatted Desoutter, British maker of portable tools.

   • 1989, Benjamin M. Pascual, The Happy Time of an Ilocano Boy, and Other Essays, New Day Publishers, →ISBN, page 74:

     Every obscure clodhopper who stumbles to work at daybreak finds himself backpatted by a kompadre whom he has never seen before.