claptrap

plural claptraps · alternative clap trap · alternative clap-trap

1. countableuncountableEmpty verbiage or nonsense.First known use early 19th c.

   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.

   2014 November 6, Rob Nixon, “Naomi Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’”, in The New York Times

   Synonyms: hot air, palaver, waffle, absurdity, all my eye, all my eye and Betty Martin, apple grease, applesauce

2. countablehistoricaluncountableA device for producing a clapping sound in theaters.
3. countableuncountableA 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."

   1869 May, Anthony Trollope, “Lady Milborough as Ambassador”, in He Knew He Was Right, volume I, London: Strahan and Company, […], →OCLC, page 83