clapometern.
/klaˈpɒmᵻtə/, /kləˈpɒmᵻtə/, U.S. /kləˈpɑmədər/ Originally and chiefly British.
Any of various devices used to measure the volume (and duration) of an audience's applause, and hence to gauge enthusiasm or popularity. Also figurative and in extended use. Cf. applause meter n. at Additions.Originally and most notably an instrument devised by Hughie Green, Canadian-born television presenter, and popularized on his British television talent contest ‘Opportunity Knocks’, which ran from 1956 to 1978.
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1971 TV Times 16–22 Oct. 25/4 The Digitometer is a recent innovation designed to replace the clapometer as an instrument used to judge the decibels of studio audience applause.
1976 ‘W. Trevor’ Children of Dynmouth i. 36 The clapometer was bursting itself, registering 98, a record. ‘You're bringing the house down’, Hughie Green said.
1986 Times 12 Oct. 64/7 Fast-forwarding through the years, the fortunes of the famous four MPs rise and fall with clapometer rapidity.
1993 Observer 12 Dec. 3/1 The BBC's most watched current affairs programme..should be more like a hustings..with the audience..more involved... They must not be there as clapometers or witnesses.
1996 Independent (Nexis) 27 Sept. (Twenty-four–Seven section) 2 Imagine your poem being judged by that most ruthless arbiter of popular culture—the clapometer... ‘Ours is actually a sound-level monitor from Tandy’, says Claire Williamson from the Bristol Slam Gang.
2002 Northern Echo (Electronic ed.) 11 Apr. But Iain Duncan Smith received a reception that verged on the rapturous on both the occasions that he was spotted by the crowd. Does this clapometer suggest how ‘representative’ of the nation these queuers were?
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, March 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1971