Clapboard

Clapboard, in modern American usage, is a word for long, thin boards used to cover walls and (formerly) roofs of buildings.

[3][4] An older meaning of "clapboard" is small split pieces of oak imported from Germany for use as barrel staves, and the name is a partial translation (from klappen, "to fit") of Middle Dutch klapholt and related to German Klappholz.

In some areas, clapboards were traditionally left as raw wood, relying upon good air circulation and the use of 'semi-hardwoods' to keep the boards from rotting.

In modern clapboard these colors remain popular, but with a hugely wider variety due to chemical pigments and stains.

Newer, cheaper designs often imitate the form of clapboard construction as siding made of vinyl (uPVC), aluminum, fiber cement, or other man-made materials.

Oak clapboards lean-to attic Ephraim Hawley House
Clapboard siding stained dark brown
Captain William Smith House at Minute Man National Historical Park , a restored saltbox style house with unpainted clapboard siding
Contemporary use of clapboard/weatherboard
Contemporary use of clapboard/weatherboard and corrugated galvanised iron in Australia
Dutch Colonial Revival house built in weatherboard in New London, Connecticut
Period weatherboard house in Dunedin , New Zealand
Victorian two-storey weatherboard terrace house in the Sydney suburb of Camperdown
Weatherboarded Cottage, Petteridge, Borough of Tunbridge Wells , Kent , England. This style of building is very common in rural west Kent.