Past tense and past participle of clepe; an archaic form meaning was called or named.
An alternative past tense form of clepe, showing the multiple conjugation patterns that existed in Middle English before standardization. Some verbs had weak past tenses like 'cleped' and strong past tenses like 'clept.'
Some verbs got to have two different past tenses—'clept' and 'cleped'—until English decided that was too much chaos and picked just one standard form for each word.
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