Definition of "clepe"

clepe

/kliːp/

verb
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.
  Quotations
  She clepes him king of graues, & graue for kings, / Imperious ſupreme of all mortall things.The spelling has been modernized.
  1593, 1896, lines 995–996
  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.
  1880, Richard Francis Burton, Os Lusíadas, volume II, page 408
  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.
  1937, Rex Stout, chapter 8, in The Red Box
5. (intransitive, now chiefly dialectal, often with 'on') To tell lies about; inform against (someone).
  Quotations
  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
6. (intransitive, now chiefly dialectal) To be loquacious; tattle; gossip.
7. (transitive, now chiefly dialectal) To report; relate; tell.
noun
plural clepes
1. (now chiefly dialectal) A cry; an appeal; a call.
  Quotations
  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.
  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

Definition of "clepe"

clepe

verb

Quotations

Quotations

noun

Quotations