Meanings
present singular third person backslaps · participle present backslapping · participle past backslapped · past backslapped
- To enthusiastically affirm or congratulate a person, especially by patting them on the back.
1 more example
In public he put on a performance that was at once outraged and outrageous, but usually he did not carry grudges into his private life. Exuding the backslapping air of a socializer who loved to gamble and drink, he could not understand why people whose careers he had ruined and publicly ridiculed would be hostile to his friendly advances.
1983 August 13, John Kyper, “Flamboyant Inquisitor”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 5, page 14
Origin
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
backslap. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/backslap
“backslap.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/backslap. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “backslap,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/backslap.
Source: backslap on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.