I cleep, you cleep, he cleeps

[Douglas G. Wilson]

  Here is another instance, from 1852, applied to another game (called
"French and English"):

http://www.drugfreereading.com/interest_novels/Book%20of%20Sports%20and%20GamesSELF.pdf

(p. 36)

<<A rope being provided, two players stand out, and after having cleeped
for first choice, select the partners.>>

No explanation, no quotation marks.

The word appears as "clepe" here and there in dialect glossaries: this
is the clearest I've seen, apparently reprinted from an 1840 glossary of
East Anglia dialect:

http://tinyurl.com/27hxcea

(p. 61)

<<Clepe,* _v._ in Suffolk pr. _clape_ [claip]; i. e. to choose by
calling partners in rustic games, as cricket, foot-ball, &c. "To clepe a
side" is, by a lot for the first call, after which each headsman
alternately calls to his side one of the players, till the full number
is _cleped_, or called. Cf. O.E. _ycleped_, _yclept_, vocatus. [A.S.
_cleopian_.]>>

Apparently the variant "clip" also occurred.

-- Doug Wilson

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