go like the clappers

To move extremely quickly or vigorously. Primarily heard in UK. If we go like the clappers, we should be able to finish before the deadline. Customers went like the clappers into the store to snatch up as many bargains as they could carry. At the sound of approaching sirens, the partygoers went like the clappers in every direction.

like the clappers

Extremely quickly or vigorously. Primarily heard in UK. If we go like the clappers, we should be able to finish before the deadline. Customers ran like the clappers into the store to snatch up as many bargains as they could carry.

See also: clapper, like

run like the clappers

To run extremely quickly or vigorously. Primarily heard in UK. If we run like the clappers, we should be able to turn our papers in before the building closes. Customers ran like the clappers into the store to snatch up as many bargains as they could carry.

like the clappers

BRITISH, INFORMAL

If someone or something moves or does something like the clappers, they do it very quickly. Once released, the horse went like the clappers. Kate must have driven like the clappers to have got home so quickly. Note: The clapper of a bell is the part inside it which strikes it to make it ring.

See also: clapper, like

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

like the clappers

very fast or very hard. British informal

Clappers may refer to the striking part of a bell, or it may refer to a device in a mill for striking or shaking the hopper in order to make the grain move down to the millstones. The phrase like the clappers developed as mid 20th-century RAF slang, and is sometimes found in the form like the clappers of hell .

1992 Jeff Torrington Swing Hammer Swing! Why should a hearse be going like the clappers through the streets of Glasgow at this time of night?

See also: clapper, like

like the ˈclappers

(British English, informal) very fast: We had to drive like the clappers to get there on time.

See also: clapper, like

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