Other forms: applauded, applauding, applauds
To applaud is to strike your palms together to show approval. A room full of people doing it at once.
It works with and without an object, so an audience applauds and it applauds a performance. There is a figurative sense meaning to praise a decision, and saying you applaud somebody's honesty involves no hands at all. The noun is applause, which is a mass noun, and a round of applause is the countable unit. Clapping somebody off is the warmest version there is.
1verbapplaudTo clap the hands to show approval.
“The whole hall stood to applaud.”
2verbexpressTo express strong approval of something.
“I applaud the decision, whatever it costs.”
Also accepted in games: clap
Applaud is to clap towards: Latin ad, to, plus plaudere, to strike or to clap. The same plaudere sits inside explode, which once meant clapping an actor off the stage.
Latin
applaudere — to clap the hands together, applaud
Middle English
applauden
English, today
applaud
Built from
From Middle English applauden, from Latin applaudere (“to clap the hands together, applaud”), from ad (“to”) + plaudere (“to strike, clap”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA