Word of the Day for Thursday May 5, 2005 claque \KLACK\, noun: 1. A group hired to applaud at a performance. 2. A group of fawning admirers. He cultivated the "Georgetown set" of leading journalists and columnists and had them cheering for him as if he had hired a claque. --Theodore Draper, "Little Heinz And Big Henry," [1]New York Times, September 6, 1992 Behind the hacks was the claque. They cheered and whooped in a vague way, like a group of restrained English persons at a Texas rodeo: "Whee! Whoooo! Polite cough!" --Simon Hoggart, "Yee hah, chaps! It's the manifesto," [2]The Guardian, May 11, 2001 Charles Bukowski suffers from too good a press-- a small but loudly enthusiastic claque. --Kenneth Rexroth, "There's Poetry in a Ragged Hitch-Hiker," [3]New York Times, July 5, 1964 _________________________________________________________ Claque comes from French, from claquer, "to clap," ultimately of imitative origin. References 1. http://www.nytimes.com/ 2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian 3. http://www.nytimes.com/ Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=claque