mousetrap
Americannoun
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mousetraps
plural
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a trap for mice, especially one consisting of a rectangular wooden base on which a metal spring is mounted.
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a device, machine, or the like whose structure or function suggests a trap for mice.
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a device, system, or stratagem for detecting and catching someone in an unauthorized or illegal act.
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Football. trap.
verb (used with object)
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Informal.
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to trap or snare.
traffic cops mousetrapping drunken drivers.
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to manipulate by devious or clever means; trick or outwit.
to mousetrap the witness into a contradiction.
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Football. trap.
idioms
noun
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any trap for catching mice, esp one with a spring-loaded metal bar that is released by the taking of the bait
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informal cheese of indifferent quality
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of mousetrap
First recorded in 1400–50, mousetrap is from late Middle English mous trappe. See mouse, trap 1
Explanation
A mousetrap is a device for catching or killing mice. If mice have overtaken your home, running around your living room at night and making nests in your silverware drawer, it might be time to get some mousetraps. The most basic type of mousetrap has a metal bar that springs loose when a mouse steps on it and snaps hard enough to kill it. Other mousetraps trap a curious mouse so that you can release it (preferably far away from your house). Mice are tempted into any kind of mousetrap by edible bait like cheese or peanut butter. The word mousetrap was used figuratively in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" to mean a "trick intended to ensnare someone."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
If I can create a better mousetrap, because I’m observing something that has just been accepted, and I can do it better, then I will go into that industry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
A bit like setting and later triggering a mousetrap.
From BBC ● May 7, 2026
"Wagner troops climbed into Bakhmut like rats into a mousetrap," Oleksander Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine's ground forces, told troops at the Bakhmut front this week.
From Reuters ● May 20, 2023
“It’s not incentivizing them to go out there and try to find somebody who’s built a better mousetrap and can generate power more cheaply,” he said.
From New York Times ● Dec. 20, 2022
Tie one end of the string to the trappy part of the mousetrap.
From "As Brave As You" by Jason Reynolds
The first tells of laying mousetraps, but that didn’t work.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
“They have built one of the most complex mousetraps in the world,” Mr. Brunson said.
From New York Times ● May 31, 2023
Local volunteers pitched in to help build the contraptions, which are triggered by mousetraps and fashioned out of PVC pipe and chicken wire.
From Seattle Times ● May 12, 2023
But the gatekeepers of phony commercial solutions to existential violence — such as better helmets, no more effective than better mousetraps — want us to focus on only one aspect of football harm.
From Salon ● Jan. 14, 2023
Some find their way to barn lofts; some even creep into people’s houses and live under the eaves or in attics, taking their chances with mousetraps.
From "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" by Robert C. O'Brien
“It’s not speculative stuff that is going to get mousetrapped by a new large language model release in a year.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
Last week, mousetrapped by George McGovern, whom he admires, New York Times Columnist Tom Wicker performed a manful act.
From Time Magazine Archive
Once there, the visitors often could not leave: "mousetrapped," with their computers' "back" and "close" commands disabled.
From Time Magazine Archive
Princeton's President Robert F. Goheen, 45, was not about to be mousetrapped.
From Time Magazine Archive
He didn't know what had happened, except for one clear thing: they had been mousetrapped.
From The Blue Ghost Mystery by Harold L. (Harold Leland) Goodwin
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
