trapeze
Americannoun
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trapezes
plural
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an apparatus, used in gymnastics and acrobatics, consisting of a short horizontal bar attached to the ends of two suspended ropes.
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(on a small sailboat) a device by which a crew member can be suspended almost completely outboard while hiking.
noun
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a free-swinging bar attached to two ropes, used by circus acrobats, etc
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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
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of trapeze
1860–65; < French, special use of trapèze trapezium
Explanation
If you've been to the circus, you've probably seen a trapeze, a swing-like bar on ropes hanging high in the air. Trapeze performers do daring tricks while swinging far above the ground. Acrobats and trapeze artists are trained to dangle and flip and leap from trapeze to trapeze as they swing dozens of feet above the ground. The trapeze was invented in 1859 by a French performer named Jules Leotard. The word trapeze comes from the Latin word trapezium, a geometrical four-sided figure that is mimicked by the shape made by the ceiling, ropes, and bar in a trapeze.
Vocabulary lists containing trapeze
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:
The agents booked them a trapeze class for early April.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 28, 2026
Flying trapeze artist Mariella Arata-Quiroga, daughter of Vargas owners and longtime friends of Cancro, Nelson Quiroga and Katya Arata-Quiroga, turns to smile at her grandfather, Victor Arata, a retired high-wire performer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2024
Navigating this period as a journalist and sole parent feels like being a trapeze artist without a net—each day teetering on the edge of madness.
From Salon ● Jul. 17, 2024
As for Morgan Gibbs-White exaggerating the challenge, and flying through the air like a trapeze artist, he should be ashamed of himself.
From BBC ● Feb. 19, 2024
Ultimate Saturday is when Gracie and her dad do something special, just the two of them, like gourmet cooking classes or trapeze school.
From "The House That Lou Built" by Mae Respicio
His final production for the RSC, in 1970, was a memorable, airborne version of A Midsummer Night's Dream using trapezes and stilts.
From BBC ● Jul. 3, 2022
In this event, two-person teams, like the one described above, perform near-acrobatic feats on literal trapezes to zoom around a racecourse, almost like wind-powered NASCAR.
From Slate ● Jul. 29, 2021
The floor of Bunny Christie’s ostensibly naked green set cracks open to produce a crop of four-posters with plump pillows, mattresses and sheets that turn into trapezes.
From New York Times ● Aug. 7, 2019
The climactic set-piece, involving sharp blades and swinging trapezes, has no real business working — until McKinnon uncorks a wide-eyed, show-must-go-on lunacy worthy of Lucille Ball.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2018
She went on to regale them with stories about circus life—hanging from trapezes, leaping through flaming hoops, getting shot from cannons—until gradually Sticky cheered up, and the matter of parents was dropped.
From "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart
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.
