Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A long narrow board with one edge thicker than the other, overlapped horizontally to cover the outer walls of frame structures.
  • transitive verb To cover with clapboards.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To cover or sheathe with clapboards, as a house.
  • noun A long thin board, usually about 6 or 8 inches wide, used for covering the outside of a wooden building.
  • noun A roofing-board about 4 feet long by 8 inches wide, and thicker on one edge than on the other, rived from a log by splitting it from the center outward. Also called shake.
  • noun A stave for casks.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun United States A narrow board, thicker at one edge than at the other; -- used for weatherboarding the outside of houses.
  • noun engraving A stave for a cask.
  • transitive verb United States To cover with clapboards.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun film A clapper board; a device used in film production, having hinged boards that are brought together with a clap, used to synchronize picture and sound at the start of each take of a motion picture or other video production.
  • noun A narrow board, usually thicker at one edge than the other, used as siding for houses and similar structures of frame construction.
  • noun uncountable Such boards, arranged horizontally and overlapping with thick edge down, collectively, as siding.
  • noun archaic, UK An oak board of a size used for barrel staves.
  • verb To cover with clapboards.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a long thin board with one edge thicker than the other; used as siding by lapping one board over the board below
  • verb cover with clapboards

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Partial translation of Dutch klaphout : klappen, to split, crack + Middle Dutch holt, board.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Blend of clapper and board

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Examples

  • Moreover, the great demand for beer-barrel stock made "clapboard" good and profitable return lading.

    The Mayflower and Her Log; July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621 — Complete Azel Ames 1876

  • The core of the hotel is concrete, while the "houses" that rise up it are timber and clapboard, meaning that many of the rooms, especially the suites, really do feel like individual and even authentic houses.

    Culture | guardian.co.uk Jonathan Glancey 2010

  • "clapboard" roof -- on one side flanked by a rude horse-shed, on the other by a corn-crib of split rails.

    The Wild Huntress Love in the Wilderness Mayne Reid 1850

  • They were sent to the northern hills of the Dominican Republic, a region of clapboard shacks and guitar-plucking farmers, and it was on a Christmas visit there that I first encountered the Loma Guaconejo cooperative.

    Robin Blotnick: WATCH: Cacao Growers Take Control Over Their Community's Fate Robin Blotnick 2011

  • They were sent to the northern hills of the Dominican Republic, a region of clapboard shacks and guitar-plucking farmers, and it was on a Christmas visit there that I first encountered the Loma Guaconejo cooperative.

    Robin Blotnick: WATCH: Cacao Growers Take Control Over Their Community's Fate Robin Blotnick 2011

  • My window shutters banged against the clapboard and then, I heard the sound again, this time with my eyes wide.

    Olivia V.C.Andrews 2011

  • The buildings—a main house, a guest house and a garage—are clad in vertical bleached-cedar battens and clapboard, resulting in an unusual, gridlike effect that was inspired by traditional architecture in the Japanese cities of Kyoto and Kanazawa.

    Simple Shapes on Shelter Island Juliet Chung 2011

  • Willingham awoke from a nap one morning shortly before Christmas, 1991, to find his clapboard house engulfed in flames.

    Marshall Fine: Movie Review: Incendiary: The Willingham Case Marshall Fine 2011

  • The buildings—a main house, a guest house and a garage—are clad in vertical, bleached cedar battens and clapboard, resulting in a gridlike effect that was inspired by traditional architecture in the Japanese cities of Kyoto and Kanazawa.

    Shelter Island Compound 2011

  • His characteristic themes are announced: a lonely clapboard house; a pedestrian under a streetlamp, seen from above; an isolated brownstone; a seamstress at a window.

    A Peek Behind Those Paintings Karen Wilkin 2011

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