I cleep, you cleep, he cleeps

[George Thompson]

This word isn't in DARE or the OED.

"Prisoner's Base is a very lively and amusing game, and is played as follows: Two captains being appointed, they "cleep" for partners, i. e. they advance towards each other, by bringing, alternately, the heel of one foot to the toe of the other, until at last there be not room for one of them to put his foot down between the toe of his opponent and his own; this player has the first choice of partners.

>From The Boy's Book of Sports and Games. . . . By Uncle John, Philadelphia & New York, Appleton, 1851, p. 49, as read from Google Books.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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