Clepes

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To call or name a person by a particular title or epithet
2. To address or designate someone by a specific name or appellation
3. To give a name to or call someone by a particular designation

Etymology: "Clepes" is the third-person singular form of "clepe," an archaic verb meaning "to call" or "to name." It is an inflected form, so the story belongs to the verb. Its ancestor, Old English "cleopian" or "clipian," meant "to speak, cry out, call, summon, invoke," and it stretched well beyond simply giving a name. It could mean to cry to someone for help or to implore them, as well as to summon a person. The verb's deeper roots are in sound rather than speech. It descends from a Proto-Germanic form meaning "to ring" or "to sound," which traces back to an Indo-European base meaning "to sound." Related words in Old Frisian, Dutch, and Middle Low German have kept that original sense of ringing, clattering, or tolling, as in Dutch "kleppen," meaning "to toll" or "to chatter." English "clepe" moved from the noise of a bell or a cry to the act of calling out a name.