trapeze
[tra-peez or, esp. British, truh-]
- an apparatus, used in gymnastics and acrobatics, consisting of a short horizontal bar attached to the ends of two suspended ropes.
- (on a small sailboat) a device by which a crew member can be suspended almost completely outboard while hiking.
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Origin of trapeze
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for trapeze
Contemporary Examples
Freed from her guitar, but wearing counterintuitive pumps, she leaned back like a trapeze artist.
Trapeze artists and those shot out of cannonballs would fall to their death.
For a hot minute, we had Mayor Bloomberg in a trapeze, but we lost him.
Oscars Host Neil Patrick Harris on His Best and Worst Emcee Moments (VIDEO)Neil Patrick Harris
October 15, 2014
Trapeze tragedy The St. Louis Trapeze Incident occurred in 1872.
Whether he is insinuating himself into a juggling routine or flubbing a trapeze act, he clearly has those skills in his toolkit.
Historical Examples
The soldier tried to get up to me by means of the trapeze and the gymnasium rope.
My Double LifeSarah Bernhardt
Then you don't think any the worse of me because I am a trapeze performer.
The Young Acrobat of the Great North American CircusHoratio Alger Jr.
"I was glad of the chance to see what I could do on the trapeze," he said.
The Young Acrobat of the Great North American CircusHoratio Alger Jr.
But he was bound to relieve his feelings somehow, and the trapeze was just what he wanted.
Tom, Dick and HarryTalbot Baines Reed
She was fond of daring feats on the trapeze, and had to be checked in her indulgence in them.
A Mortal AntipathyOliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
trapeze
- a free-swinging bar attached to two ropes, used by circus acrobats, etc
- 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
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Word Origin
C19: from French trapèze, from New Latin; see trapezium
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for trapeze
n.
1861, from French trapèze, from Late Latin trapezium (see trapezium), probably because the crossbar, the ropes and the ceiling formed a trapezium.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper