This is how Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines clap, where no venereal disease is mentioned in the common language usage sense. But I know that for that v.d., clap is not used alone; the correct usage would be the clap, see the definition in Answers.com.

I was only trying to show that Gordon Brown was certainly impressed that his government now has its own Google Earth climate change monitoring tool and he must have clapped with the applauding crowd.