Word.ws English Dictionary

clap back

clap back verb: to make a witty or sarcastic retort.

Verb

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

  1. (informal, intransitive) To make a witty or sarcastic retort.
    • 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...2019 September 24, Karen Zraick, “Greta Thunberg, After Pointed U.N. Speech, Faces Attacks From the Right”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived...
    • Many of Mr. Shapiro’s targets also spoke at AmericaFest. One after another, they took the stage to clap back.2025 December 20, Richard Fausset, Ken Bensinger, “Turning Point’s Annual Gathering Turns Into a Gripefest”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC

Forms of clap back

third-person singular presentclaps back
present participleclapping back
past participleclapped back
pastclapped back

Origin of clap back

From clap (“to shoot (somebody) with a gun”) + back.

Words formed from clap back

Questions about clap back

What does clap back mean?
Clap back means to make a witty or sarcastic retort.
What part of speech is clap back?
Clap back is a verb.
What is the past tense of clap back?
The past tense of clap back is clapped back.

Words near clap back in the dictionary

  1. Clanwilliam cedars
  2. Clanwilliam cypress
  3. Clanwilliam cypresses
  4. Clanwilliam-Erickson
  5. clap
  6. clap back
  7. clap cheeks
  8. clap cold
  9. clap eyes on
  10. clap in
  11. clap in, clap out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clap back (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-clap back.wav.

Cite this entry: “clap back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clap_back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.