(n): someone who communicates high praise
(n): a mobile mass of muscular tissue covered with mucous membrane and located in the oral cavity
(n): a fully differentiated structural and functional unit in an animal that is specialized for some particular function
(n): a movable speech organ
(n): metal striker that hangs inside a bell and makes a sound by hitting the side
(n): the part of a mechanical device that strikes something
In glassmaking, a tool consisting of two rectangular pieces of wood joined at one end by a leather hinge. An aperture in one of the pieces of wood holds the stem of a goblet or wine glass while it is being made. The clapper is also used to squeeze a blob of glass to form the foot.
Perrrrhaaaaaps.... But you can't prove a thing!
The connection you draw, npydyuan, between this word and rabbits is interesting to me on a personal note. For I am called Clapper, and rabbits have played some role in my life from birth up to the present. Perhaps you had a particular audience in mind for this post?
Right! Sure does sound cozy.
Yup.... I wouldn't mind having a "court walled about, and full of nests" of my own, sometimes to snuggle into.
A bunny house?
Randle Cotgrave’s "A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues of 1611." He says clapier is French for a “clapper of conies†(coney being the usual word at the time for an adult rabbit), “a heap of stones &c., whereinto they retire themselves; or (as our clapper), a court walled about, and full of nests or boards, or stones, for tame conies.