To jangle and claw each other about. (Dutch and German, klappen, to strike, clatter.)
“Now they are clapper-clawing one another Iʹll go look on.”—Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, v. 4.
⁂ A clapper-claw is a back-scratcher.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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