Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Forms of the preterit and past participle of clepe.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective archaic, poetic
Called ,named . - verb Past participle of
clepe
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Words like pantywaist I should probably label as obsolete; a word like yclept, which crops up either facetiously or evocatively in speech and writing now and then, I should label as archaic.
The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004
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Words like pantywaist I should probably label as obsolete; a word like yclept, which crops up either facetiously or evocatively in speech and writing now and then, I should label as archaic.
The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004
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Know, then, that I am the daughter of King Hardub of Roum; my name is Abrizah and the ancient dame, yclept Zat al-Dawahi, is my grandmother by the sword side.
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This mighty monarch had a son yclept Sharrkan,143 who was likest of all men to his father and who proved himself one of the prodigies of his time for subduing the brave and bringing his contemporaries to bane and ban.
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Then the Kings said each to other, It remaineth only for us to wreak our revenge upon the old woman Shawahi, yclept Zat al-Dawahi, because she is the prime cause of all these calamities and cast us into adversity on this wise.
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Well, on to the meat of the mag, yclept Black Amazon of Mars, or Stark Rides Again!
Archive 2008-08-01 Paul 2008
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Ron & Don (KIRO, m-f, 4-7p) said on-air Thursday that "Sheriff Hairspray," (as he's yclept in King County legal circles) won't return their calls, but Darcy "comes down any time we ask her to."
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The shortest path from the Hollow to the Rectory wound near a certain mansion, the same under whose lone walls Malone passed on that night-journey mentioned in an early chapter of this work - the old and tenantless dwelling yclept Fieldhead.
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There had been talk at first, both inside and outside the Francais, of a satirical piece called the Petty Bourgeois, but having nothing except the name in common with his unfinished novel similarly yclept.
Balzac 2003
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There was a sort of scholars along either side the board, that is to wit, Dixon yclept junior of saint
Ulysses 2003
oroboros commented on the word yclept
From Tony's comment on MyFavoriteWord.com:
It is my favorite word because of the unusual letter combinations that are not seen in other words. It also leads to pronouncing two double consonants when you speak the word; cl and pt. Yclept means named as in "I have a dog yclept Rover."
September 29, 2007
uselessness commented on the word yclept
Great web site! The best part is, there's no entry for That Which Will Not Be Spoken.
September 29, 2007
oroboros commented on the word yclept
Voldemort!!??
September 30, 2007
uselessness commented on the word yclept
The S-Word. I'm in eternal ruin for even thinking it.
September 30, 2007
oroboros commented on the word yclept
Schmuckenfreude? :oD
September 30, 2007
reesetee commented on the word yclept
Uselessness! Good God, man, do you want to bring down hellfire and damnation on us? Stop even thinking of That Which Will Not Be Spoken!
P.S. I do love that site, oroboros. Thanks for reminding me.
September 30, 2007
whichbe commented on the word yclept
By the name of; called. Once this was the standard way of forming the past participle of the verb clepe, to call (or, more strictly, its Old English precursor, cleopian). For the past few hundred years it has only turned up as a deliberately archaic form, mostly in poetry, or as light relief. It surfaces occasionally as ponderous humour in journalistic pieces, as here in the Jerusalem Post in 1997 (the name of the writer has been suppressed to protect the guilty): "The caption under the photo of the unfortunately yclept basketball player just makes matters worse: ‘David Putz dribbles away...’ ". Such poppings-up are frequent enough that the word appears in most dictionaries today, even though it died out in the north of England about 1200 and lingered in the south and east only a little longer. It has been outside the mainstream of English for so long that the person credited with popularising it again (Gavin Douglas, a Scots poet and divine), wrote around the end of the fifteenth century. The initial y was once the standard way of marking the past participle: yclensed, yfastened, ypunched, and dozens of others. It was the Old English equivalent of a form which still exists, for example, as ge– in modern German. Advice to budding writers: best avoided!
(from World Wide Words)
May 21, 2008
lindyhopr commented on the word yclept
A.C Spectorsky (1910-1972) was the books editor for Playboy during its heyday as a pseudo intellectual journal. He used the phrase "aptly yclept" once a month. After a quick trip to the Funk and Wagnalls, Playboy wannabes sprinkled it in their conversation.
His full name was "Auguste Comet Spectorsky"
February 19, 2009
jmjarmstrong commented on the word yclept
JM is aptly yclept JM
November 16, 2009