clap back

See also: clapback

English[edit]

From clap (“to shoot (somebody) with a gun”) + back.^[1]

clap back (third-person singular simple present claps back, present participle clapping back, simple past and past participle clapped back)

(originally African-American Vernacular, informal, intransitive) To make a witty or sarcastic retort.
- 2019 September 24, Karen Zraick, “Greta Thunberg, After Pointed U.N. Speech, Faces Attacks From the Right”, in The New York Times‎^[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-06-04:
  On Monday night, President Trump tweeted a clip of Ms. Thunberg's speech, along with a message many believed to be sarcastic. "She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future," he wrote. "So nice to see!" Ms. Thunberg, who has nearly two million Twitter followers of her own, clapped back in her bio, which had been changed on Tuesday: "A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future."

^ “What's a 'Clapback'?”, in Merriam-Webster‎^[1], 2017 August 31, archived from the original on 2023-01-25: “You may think the clap in question is the well-known clap that means "a sudden blow." It's not. In this context, clap refers to shooting someone; the word refers to the sound of a handgun shot. It shows up in rap lyrics back to the early 1990s: […]”