claptrap

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Empty verbiage or nonsense.

   Klein diagnoses impressively what hasn’t worked. No more claptrap about fracked gas as a bridge to renewables. Enough already of the international summit meetings that produce sirocco-quality hot air, and nonbinding agreements that bind us all to more emissions.

2. 2
   noun

   A device or trick to gain applause; a humbug.

   There had been a suggestion that the child should be with her [while she answers the door], but the mother herself had rejected this. "It would be stagey," she had said, "and clap-trap. There is nothing I hate so much as that."

Theater slang, c. 1730, from clap + trap, referring to theatrical techniques or gags used to incite applause.

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