Word.ws English Dictionary

clep

clep is the alternative form of clepe.

Verb

clep (third-person singular simple present cleps, present participle clepping, simple past and past participle clepped)

  1. (dialectal) To chatter, gossip, tell tales.
  2. (dialectal) To tattle.

Meaning of clepe

Verb

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

  1. (archaic, dialectal, intransitive) To give a call; cry out; appeal.
  2. (archaic, dialectal, transitive) To call; call upon; cry out to.
  3. (archaic, dialectal, transitive) To call to oneself; invite; summon.
  4. (archaic, dialectal, transitive) To call; call by the name of; name.
    • She clepes him king of graues, & graue for kings, / Imperious ſupreme of all mortall things.1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC, lines [995–996]
    Synonyms:
    designate
  5. (dialectal, intransitive, often) To tell lies about; inform against (someone).
    • You tried to mentor someone, teach them the basics of the trade, and they ran off to clype on you.2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 173
    Synonyms:
    grass
  6. (dialectal, intransitive) To be loquacious; tattle; gossip.
    Synonyms:
    blab

See all 8 meanings of clepe

Proper noun capitalized: CLEP

CLEP

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of College Level Examination Program.

Forms of clep

third-person singular presentcleps
present participleclepping
past participleclept
pastclept
past participleclepped
pastclepped

Origin of clep

From Middle English clepen, from Old English cleopian, clipian.

From Middle English cleppen, from Old English *cleppan, clæppan, from Proto-West Germanic *klappijan. Cognate with Dutch kleppen (“to chatter”).

Questions about clep

What does clep mean?
Clep means to chatter, gossip, tell tales.
What is clep the alternative form of?
Clep is the alternative form of clepe.
What part of speech is clep?
Clep can be a verb or a proper noun.
What is the past tense of clep?
The past tense of clep is clept.

Words near clep in the dictionary

  1. Cleopatra wigs
  2. Cleopatraesque
  3. Cleopatran
  4. cleopatras
  5. Cleora
  6. clep
  7. clepe
  8. cleped
  9. clepes
  10. clepest
  11. clepeth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clep (page history and authors); CLEP (page history and authors); clepe (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.

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