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trap
1[ trap ]
noun
- a contrivance used for catching game or other animals, as a mechanical device that springs shut suddenly.
- any device, stratagem, trick, or the like for catching a person unawares.
- any of various devices for removing undesirable substances from a moving fluid, vapor, etc., as water from steam or cinders from coal gas.
- Also called air trap. an arrangement in a pipe, as a double curve or a U -shaped section, in which liquid remains and forms a seal for preventing the passage or escape of air or of gases through the pipe from behind or below.
- traps, the percussion instruments of a jazz or dance band.
- Slang. trap house ( def 1 ).
- Trapshooting. a device for hurling clay pigeons into the air.
- Golf. sand trap ( def ).
- Baseball. an act or instance of trapping a ball.
- Also called mousetrap,. Football. a play in which a defensive player, usually a guard or tackle, is allowed by the team on offense to cross the line of scrimmage into the backfield and is then blocked out from the side, thereby letting the ball-carrier run through the opening in the line.
- the piece of wood, shaped somewhat like a shoe hollowed at the heel, and moving on a pivot, used in playing the game of trapball.
- the game of trapball.
- Slang. mouth:
Keep your trap shut.
- Slang: Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive. (especially in anime) a crossdressing man who is perceived as or passes as a woman: a disparaging and offensive term when referring to a trans woman.
- Chiefly British. a carriage, especially a light, two-wheeled one.
verb (used with object)
- to catch in a trap; ensnare:
to trap foxes.
- to catch by stratagem, artifice, or trickery.
- to furnish or set with traps.
- to provide (a drain or the like) with a trap.
- to stop and hold by a trap, as air in a pipe.
- Baseball. to catch (a ball) as or immediately after it hits the ground.
- Football. to execute a trap against (a defensive player).
verb (used without object)
- to set traps for game:
He was busy trapping.
- to engage in the business of trapping animals for their furs.
- Trapshooting. to work the trap.
trap
2[ trap ]
trap
3[ trap ]
noun
- any of various fine-grained, dark-colored igneous rocks having a more or less columnar structure, especially some form of basalt.
trap
4[ trap ]
noun
- a ladder or ladderlike device used to reach a loft, attic, etc.
trap
1/ træp /
noun
- any fine-grained often columnar dark igneous rock, esp basalt
- any rock in which oil or gas has accumulated
trap
2/ træp /
noun
- a mechanical device or enclosed place or pit in which something, esp an animal, is caught or penned
- any device or plan for tricking a person or thing into being caught unawares
- anything resembling a trap or prison
- a fitting for a pipe in the form of a U-shaped or S-shaped bend that contains standing water to prevent the passage of gases
- any similar device
- a device that hurls clay pigeons into the air to be fired at by trapshooters
- any one of a line of boxlike stalls in which greyhounds are enclosed before the start of a race
- See trap door
- a light two-wheeled carriage
- a slang word for mouth
- golf an obstacle or hazard, esp a bunker
- slang.plural jazz percussion instruments
- obsolete.usually plural a policeman
verb
- tr to catch, take, or pen in or as if in a trap; entrap
- tr to ensnare by trickery; trick
- tr to provide (a pipe) with a trap
- to set traps in (a place), esp for animals
trap
3/ træp /
noun
- an obsolete word for trappings
verb
- troften foll byout to dress or adorn
Derived Forms
- ˈtrapˌlike, adjective
Other Words From
- trap·like adjective
Word History and Origins
Origin of trap1
Origin of trap2
Word History and Origins
Origin of trap1
Origin of trap2
Origin of trap3
Idioms and Phrases
see fall into a trap ; mind like a steel trap .Synonym Study
Example Sentences
The second night after we arranged this trap configuration, the male fish owl of the Faata River pair approached the enclosure and ate half the salmon inside before stumbling onto the noose carpet on the bank and engaging the trap transmitter.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that once you build it, they will come.
BofA says steer clear of so-called “value traps” like Mohawk Industries, KeyCorp, and Flowserve Corporation.
Kang and colleagues confirmed that 4VA can attract locusts in the real world by setting sticky traps baited with the pheromone.
NASA’s Spirit rover, for example, met its end after getting stuck in a sand trap on Mars in 2009.
But Reconcile is from a slightly different arm of Houston hip-hop—more focused on spiritual triumph over the trap.
Do not fall into the trap of being swayed by political notion.
You now have a growing number of candidates and elected officials who can do that without having to fall into that trap.
By the time Sotloff was allowed to leave the border crossing, the trap was set.
In this way, the U.S. would avoid the trap of being viewed, once again, as the leader of an anti-Islamic crusade.
Sometimes the animal was caught in a trap which was nothing less than a hut of logs with a single entrance.
Haggard had disappeared with the celerity of a harlequin who jumps through a trap.
A patch of light fell clear on the side of the trap, and on Longcluse's ungloved hand as he leaned on it.
A trap-door had opened in the floor of his consciousness; his first, early love sheltered in his aching heart again.
But if they all pick up the broadcast that this is where to get a free ride home, I'll have just another sand trap here.
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Definitions 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.
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