trapeze

[ tra-peezor, especially British, truh- ]

noun

1. an apparatus, used in gymnastics and acrobatics, consisting of a short horizontal bar attached to the ends of two suspended ropes.
2. (on a small sailboat) a device by which a crew member can be suspended almost completely outboard while hiking.

trapeze

/ trəˈpiːz /

noun

1. a free-swinging bar attached to two ropes, used by circus acrobats, etc
2. a sling like a bosun's chair at one end of a line attached to the masthead of a light racing sailing boat, used in sitting out

Word History and Origins

Origin of trapeze¹

1860–65; < French, special use of trapèze trapezium

Word History and Origins

Origin of trapeze¹

C19: from French trapèze , from New Latin; see trapezium

Example Sentences

He hops on a trapeze—it’s a metaphor for facing fear—talks to a rider who lost part of his leg in a motorcycle accident, and concludes, “Well, I think, everybody’s gotta find their own way of managing being scared.”

From Popular-Science

Freed from her guitar, but wearing counterintuitive pumps, she leaned back like a trapeze artist.

From The Daily Beast

Trapeze artists and those shot out of cannonballs would fall to their death.

From The Daily Beast

For a hot minute, we had Mayor Bloomberg in a trapeze, but we lost him.

From The Daily Beast

Trapeze tragedy The St. Louis Trapeze Incident occurred in 1872.

From The Daily Beast

The miner's job would be as much beyond my power as it would be to perform on a flying trapeze or to win the Grand National.

From The Daily Beast

"—And right there is where you would miss the trapeze bar by a foot, and no net under you," interrupted Davy disgustedly.

From Project Gutenberg

However, the Prince pointed out to me the girl on the trapeze, the same one you had admired in Rome.

From Project Gutenberg

In the loft a boy learns to turn flip-flops, and with a lariat rope he can make a trapeze.

From Project Gutenberg

Then if the bar be grasped and the body thrown forward, the trapeze, the arms, and the body will form the segment of a circle.

From Project Gutenberg

As I sat on the trapeze bar there was that boy forty feet above me kicking and yelling.

From Project Gutenberg