trap

A machine or other device designed to catch (and sometimes kill) animals, either by holding them in a container, or by catching hold of part of the body.

Noun

  1. A machine or other device designed to catch (and sometimes kill) animals, either by holding them in a container, or by catching hold of part of the body.
    • I put down some traps in my apartment to try and deal with the mouse problem.
    • The Russian bear has always been eager to stick his paw in Latin American waters. Now we've got him in a trap, let's take his leg off right up to his testicles. On second thought, let's take off his testicles, too. -...

    Synonyms: snare fang

  2. A trick or arrangement designed to catch someone in a more general sense; a snare.
    • Unfortunately she fell into the trap of confusing biology with destiny.
    • God and your majesty / Protect mine innocence, or I fall into / The trap is laid for me! - 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr....

    1. (by extension, cartography, law, technical) A (usually fictional) location or feature originally added to a map to detect plagiarism and copyright violations by other map makers or map services.

      • trap street

    2. (slang, informal, usually offensive, sometimes derogatory) Someone with male-typical anatomy who passes as female.

      • And trust me you don't want to see a trap ether. I like my girls without a ding-a-ling. - 2011 May 27, “Re: anons target US chamber”, in alt.2600 (Usenet):
      • man says he isn't a fag when asking to masturbate with my body. positions himself as conqueror, calls my body trick, trap, tranny. man fucks witch embarrassed by his own release […] - 2020, jaye simpson, it was never...
      • “My son is a tranny.” “No, mother dear, I'm a Trap. There is a difference. You should have knocked before you came in.” 'Trap'? For all she knew about terms for cross-dressers he could have said he was a splurge monkey...

    3. (slang, informal, sometimes considered offensive) A fictional character from anime, or related media, who is coded as or has qualities typically associated with a gender other than the character's ostensible gender; otokonoko, josou.

      • Bridget is the super trap - 2007 Weekend Reading: Bridget is straight by 8bit Brian of Destructoid, reply by batempo on 20 August 2007
      • Of course Kei would look like a young woman, that's how traps work! - 2010 July 20, Antonio E. Gonzalez, “Re:Moyashimon Live Action”, in rec.arts.anime.misc (Usenet):
      • I saw Episode 10 of the anime today. When it explains about the trap's problems in HS it was much clearer than the same section of the manga. - 2013 September 7, Bobbie Sellers, “Re: What's your favouite anime?”, in...
  3. An exception generated by the processor or by an external event.
  4. Any device used to hold and suddenly release an object.
    • They shot out of the school gates like greyhounds out of the trap.

    1. A covering over a hole or opening; a trapdoor.

      • Close the trap, would you, before someone falls and breaks their neck.

    2. (now rare) A kind of movable stepladder or set of stairs.

      • There is likewise a cabin trap with five steps. - 1798 January 3, Edinburgh Weekly Journal, page 5:
      • I have to bear my burthen up four traps, or ladders, before I get to the main road which leads to the pit bottom. - 1842, Ellison Jack (girl, age 11), quoted in The Condition and Treatment of the Children Employed in...
      • They have very generally received the name of trap-rocks, because they often present the appearance of traps or stairs. - 1847, David Low, Elements of Practical Agriculture, page 37:
  5. A bend, sag, or other device in a waste-pipe arranged so that the liquid contents form a seal which prevents the escape of noxious gases, but permits the flow of liquids.

    1. A place in a water pipe, pump, etc., where air accumulates for lack of an outlet.

    2. (geology) A geological structure that creates a petroleum reservoir.

  6. A wooden instrument shaped somewhat like a shoe, used in the game of trapball.

    1. The game of trapball itself.

  7. A vehicle, residential building, or sidewalk corner where drugs are manufactured, packaged, or sold.
    • trap phone
    • trap car
  8. An area, especially of a city, with a low level of opportunity and a high level of poverty and crime; a ghetto; a hood.
    • Maybe T.I was also making connection between fur trapping and living in the trap, or the hood. - 2018, Kyle T. Mays, Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in North America, page 93:
    • Stay in the trap like my name was McCaulk. Dumb-ahh nigger, I think he meant Culkin. - 2021 November 19, “Pink 3 Remix”performed by PCAJAY:
    • Bitch ass nigga get rocked. I walk in da trap with a Glock and a K in my sock. U fag ass nigga get popped. U a gay lil dumb ahh nigga came from TikTok. I'mma talk my shi won't stop. Bitch u all on my dick for a drop,...
  9. A genre of hip-hop music, with half-time drums and heavy sub-bass.

    Synonyms: trap music

  10. A successful landing on an aircraft carrier using the carrier's arresting gear.
    • After 100 traps, the arresting cables have to be replaced to minimize the danger of a worn or fatigued cable snapping under an aircraft.
  11. A light two-wheeled carriage with springs.
    • a horse and trap
    • The two women looked down the alley. At the end of the Bottoms a man stood in a sort of old-fashioned trap, bending over bundles of cream-coloured stuff; while a cluster of women held up their arms to him, some with...
    • I had told them they could have my trap to take them as far as the road went, because after that they had a long walk. - 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 51”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]:...
  12. A person's mouth.
    • Keep your trap shut.

Origin

From Middle English trappe, from Old English træppe, treppe (“trap, snare”) (also in betræppan (“to trap”)) from Proto-West Germanic *trappjā (“trap, snare”), from Proto-West Germanic *trappjan (“to step”), from Proto-Germanic *trapjaną (“to tread, stamp”), from Proto-Indo-European *drebʰ- (“to step, trip, trample”). Cognate with Dutch trap (“step, stair”), German Low German Trapp (“step, stair”). Akin also to West Frisian traap (“stepping, treading, stairway”), German Treppe (“step, stair”), Old English træppan (“to step, tread”). Connection to "step" is "that upon which one steps". French trappe and Spanish trampa are ultimately borrowings from Germanic.

Forms

traps

Hyponyms

activity trap baby trap bass trap beartrap bear trap beginner's trap bell trap booby trap bottle trap bus trap camera trap canary trap cat-trap Chinese finger trap cold trap copyright trap deathtrap death trap debt trap double trap dust trap elephant trap evolutionary trap fever trap

Derived

adhesive trap around the traps belly trap birdtrap bumtrap cryotrap cybertrap debt trap diplomacy detrap dividend trap dividend value trap draintrap fall into a trap flowline trap fly out of the traps flytrap Foxtrap glue trap gully trap hash-trap heffalump trap high dividend yield trap high-dividend yield trap intertrap

Noun Entry 2

  1. A dark coloured igneous rock; (now usually) any nongranitic igneous rock.

    Synonyms: trap rock traprock

    Related: trapp

Origin

Borrowed from Swedish trapp (“step, stair, stairway”), from Middle Low German trappe (“stair, step”).

Forms

traps

Derived

trappean trappous trappy

Noun anatomy, bodybuilding

  1. The trapezius muscle.

Origin

Clipping of trapezius.

Forms

traps

Related

trip-trap trap set

Verb Entry 4

  1. To physically capture, to catch in a trap or traps, or something like a trap.
    • to trap foxes
    • As we age, the major arteries of our bodies frequently become thickened with plaque, a fatty material with an oatmeal-like consistency that builds up along the inner lining of blood vessels. The reason plaque forms...
  2. To ensnare; to take by stratagem; to entrap.
    • Be careful not to trap your finger in the door.
    • I trapp'd the foe. - 1717, John Dryden [et al.], “(please specify |book=I to XV)”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
  3. To provide with a trap.
    • to trap a drain
    • to trap a sewer pipe
  4. To set traps for game; to make a business of trapping game; to travel for the purpose of trapping.
    • trap for beaver
    • They trapped north along the river.
  5. To successfully land an aircraft on an aircraft carrier using the carrier's arresting gear.
    • After three consecutive bolters, the pilot finally trapped successfully on the Nimitz.

    Antonyms: bolter

  6. To leave suddenly, to flee.
  7. To capture (e.g. an error) in order to handle or process it.
  8. To attend to and open and close a (trap-)door.
    • For quotations using this term, see Citations:trap.
  9. Of a 'trap': to trick a (heterosexual) man into having sex, by appearing to be a woman.
    • Straight cis men persist in believing that my transition is all about them—tricking them, trapping them, ruining them. - 2016, Stefan Horlacher, Transgender and Intersex: Theoretical, Practical, and Artistic...
    • A "trap" is basically a trans girl or crossdresser who "tricks" or "traps" a straight male into getting aroused by them and then suddenly reveals their trans status. - 2019, Rachel Anne Williams, Transgressive: A Trans...
    • the Western pornography genre in which a straight man believes he is being seduced by a cis woman, and by the time he discovers she is trans has been “trapped” by his lust into having a sexual encounter with her. -...
  10. To sell illegal drugs, especially in a public area.
    • My kicks are wet from trappin' in the rain / Stole these Marshall bikes today / But don't walk in the bikers' lane / Or you're gonna catch a deafaz to the brain - 2024 June 3, “Wah Gwan Delilah” (3:13 from the...

Forms

traps trapping trapped

Related

entrap entrapment

Derived

betrap mistrap retrap trap and trace trap in trap out trappable trapper

Verb Entry 5

  1. To dress with ornaments; to adorn (especially said of horses).
    • To decke his herce, and trap his tomb-blacke steed - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 16:
    • [T]here she found her palfrey trapt / In purple blazon'd with armorial gold. - 1840, Alfred Tennyson, “Godiva”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 114:

Origin

Akin to Middle English trappe (“trappings, gear”), and perhaps from Old Northern French trape, a byform of Old French drap, a word of the same origin as English drab (“a kind of cloth”).

Forms

traps trapping trapped

Related

trapping