clepe

English

Alternative forms

• cleep, clip
• clep, clip, claip, clype (Scotland)

Etymology

From Middle English clepen, clepien, from Old English cleopian, clipian (“to speak, cry out, call, summon, invoke, cry to, implore”), from Proto-Germanic *klipōną (“to ring, sound”), from Proto-Indo-European *gal- (“to sound”). Cognate with Old Frisian klippa, kleppa (“to ring”), Dutch kleppen (“to toll, chatter”), Middle Low German kleppen (“to strike, sound”), Middle Low German kleperen (“to rattle”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kliːp/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -iːp

Verb

clepe (third-person singular simple present clepes, present participle cleping, simple past cleped or clept, past participle cleped or clept or yclept)

1. (intransitive, archaic or dialectal) To give a call; cry out; appeal.
2. (transitive, archaic or dialectal) To call; call upon; cry out to.
3. (transitive, archaic or dialectal) To call to oneself; invite; summon.
4. (transitive, archaic or dialectal) To call; call by the name of; name.
   • 1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC; Shakespeare’s Venus & Adonis: […], 4th edition, London: J[oseph] M[alaby] Dent and Co. […], 1896, →OCLC, lines 995–996:

     She clepes him king of graues, & graue for kings, / Imperious ſupreme of all mortall things.

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 1880, Richard Francis Burton, Os Lusíadas, volume II, page 408:

     See Borneo's sea-girt shore where ever flow / the perfumed liquor's thick and curded gouts, / the tears of forest-trees men "Camphor" clepe, / wherefore that Island crop of Fame shall reap.

   • 1937, Rex Stout, chapter 8, in The Red Box:

     Boyden McNair, with his right elbow on his knee and his bent head resting on the hand which covered his eyes, sat near Wolfe's desk in the dunce's chair, yclept that by me on the day that District Attorney Anderson of Westchester sat in it while Wolfe made a dunce of him.

5. (intransitive, now chiefly dialectal, often with 'on') To tell lies about; inform against (someone).
   • 2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 173:

     You tried to mentor someone, teach them the basics of the trade, and they ran off to clype on you.

6. (intransitive, now chiefly dialectal) To be loquacious; tattle; gossip.
7. (transitive, now chiefly dialectal) To report; relate; tell.

Usage notes

The verb is obsolete, except in certain dialects or when used in the past participle yclept which is sometimes used as a deliberate archaism, or as an idiomatic set phrase: aptly yclept.

Synonyms

• (call by the name of): designate, dub, name; see also Thesaurus:denominate
• (tell lies about; inform against): grass, snitch; see also Thesaurus:rat out
• (be loquacious; tattle; gossip): blab; see also Thesaurus:gossip or Thesaurus:chatter

Derived terms

• beclepe

Noun

clepe (plural clepes)

1. (now chiefly dialectal) A cry; an appeal; a call.
   • a. 1547, “Virgil’s Æneid”, in Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, transl., edited by Geo. Fred. Nott, The Works of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey and of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, volume I, London: T. Bensley, published 1815, book II, page 124, lines 1021–1024:

     So bold was I to show my voice that night / With clepes, and cries, to fill the street throughout / With Creuse’ name in sorrow, with vain tears ; / And often-sithes the same for to repeat.

Anagrams

• cleep

Latin

Verb

clepe

1. second-person singular present active imperative of clepō

Middle English

Verb

clepe

1. Alternative form of clepen

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from French crêpe. Doublet of crespo.

Noun

clepe m (plural clepes)

1. (Louisiana) crepe

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English clepen, from Old English clipian, from Proto-Germanic *klipōną (“to ring, sound”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kliːp/

Verb

clepe (past participle ee-clepèd)

1. to call, to name

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 30