What does clept mean?
"Clept" is the archaic past tense and past participle of "clepe," an obsolete English verb meaning to call, name, or address someone. Today the word survives almost entirely through quotations from medieval and Renaissance literature, most famously in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer and Edmund Spenser, where knights and heroes are frequently introduced as being "clept" or, in the fuller participial form, "yclept." A line such as "a worthy knight, right well yclept" simply means that the person has been named or styled in some way. Because "clepe" fell out of ordinary use centuries ago, "clept" carries a distinctly literary, antique flavor and would strike modern readers as deliberately old-fashioned if used outside quotation. Its closest living relatives among readers' vocabularies are the rhyming past-tense verbs like "kept" and "slept," but functionally it belongs to the history of naming rather than everyday speech. It remains valuable chiefly for anyone reading Middle English or early modern poetry.
verb (archaic)"Clept" is the archaic past tense of "clepe," an obsolete English verb meaning to call or name someone or something.
- (past participle/past tense) Called or named — used chiefly in older literature, often alongside its more famous variant 'yclept.'
"In Chaucer's verse, a knight is clept by his honour and his deeds."
"A worthy knight he was, right well yclept."
"The village, as it was then clept, stood beside the river."
If Shakespeare calls you 'clept,' congratulations — you've just been named in Middle English.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of clept
"Clept" derives from "clepe," from Old English "cleopian," meaning to call or cry out, which itself traces back to Proto-Germanic roots connected with calling out aloud. The verb was common throughout the Middle English period, producing the past forms "cleped" and "clept" and the distinctive participial form "yclept" (with the archaic y- prefix), before falling out of use in the early modern era. It survives today only in literary quotation, particularly in Chaucer and Spenser.
Related word forms
How clept is actually used
Strictly archaic; found only in Middle English and Early Modern texts, especially Chaucer and Spenser, where it typically appears in the participial forms 'yclept' or 'y-clept'. Modern readers encounter it almost exclusively through quotations from older poetry.
Easily confused with clept
"Cleft" means split or divided (as in a cleft chin or cleft palate), while "clept" is an archaic past form of the verb meaning to call or name.
"Crept" is the past tense of creep (to move slowly and quietly), whereas "clept" is the archaic past of clepe, meaning called or named.