clapboard

A long narrow board with one edge thicker than the other, overlapped horizontally to cover the outer walls of frame structures. Also called weatherboard.

To cover with clapboards.

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

American ingenuity made something new of clapboard. In England clapboard was used for barrels; the English who became Americans learned to apply it to houses.

The clapboard oak staves used to make English barrels were imported from the Baltic. But North America abounded with oak too, and the first cargo shipped from Jamestown back to England at the start of the settlement in 1607 included clapboard for this purpose.

In New England, also, the colonists made clapboards of oak. But after a few winters there, the English adventurers discovered another use for them. English houses were "half-timbered," with plaster filling the space between framing timbers. Half-timbering did not give enough protection from the fierce winters of New England, so for extra insulation the colonists clapped clapboard on the outside walls. We have a 1632 report of "a small house near the wear at Watertown, made all of clapboards."

The colonists soon learned to overlap clapboards and make them specifically for houses, with one edge thinner than the others. This style was so successful that it has remained in use to the present for all kinds of American housing, even where winter insulation is not needed.

For more information on clapboard, visit Britannica.com.

Look up clapboard in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Clapboard may refer to:

• Clapboard (architecture), a building material
• Clapperboard, a film production tool

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - bræt til klinkbelægning
v. tr. - klinkebygge

Nederlands (Dutch)
dakspaan, duighout

Français (French)
n. - planche en clin
v. tr. - couvrir de planches

Deutsch (German)
n. - Schindel
v. - mit Schindeln decken oder verschalen

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (οικοδ.) σανίδα, τάβλα (εξωτερικού τοίχου), βαρελοσάνιδο, κλακέτα έναρξης γυρίσματος κινηματογραφικής σκηνής

Italiano (Italian)
rivestimento esterno

Português (Portuguese)
n. - sarrafo (m)

Русский (Russian)
клепка

Español (Spanish)
n. - tablilla
v. tr. - poner tablillas, entablillar

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - tunnstav (am.)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
护墙板, 鱼鳞板, 隔板, 遮以护墙板

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 護牆板, 魚鱗板, 隔板
v. tr. - 遮以護牆板

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 물막이 판자, 신호용 딱딱이
v. tr. - 물막이 판자를 대다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 下見板

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) نوع من الخشب يستعمل لتغليف المنازل‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮קרש, לוח-עץ, לוח קטן שההקשה בו מציינת תחילת צילום של תמונת מסויימת בסרט‬
v. tr. - ‮כיסה בקרשים‬

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