Word Direct Answers

What does "trap" mean?

Trap: A machine or contrivance that shuts suddenly, as with a spring, used for taking game or other animals; as, a trap for foxes. She would weep if that she saw a mouse Caught in a trap. Chaucer.

Additional senses

  1. 2.Fig.: A snare; an ambush; a stratagem; any device by which one may be caught unawares. Let their table be made a snare and a trap. Rom. xi.
  2. 3.God and your majesty Protect mine innocence, or I fall into The trap is laid for me! Shak.
  3. 4.A wooden instrument shaped somewhat like a shoe, used in the game of trapball. It consists of a pivoted arm on one end of which is placed the ball to be thrown into the air by striking the other end. Also, a machine for throwing into the air glass balls, clay pigeons, etc., to be shot at.
  4. 5.The game of trapball.
  5. 6.A bend, sag, or partitioned chamber, in a drain, soil pipe, sewer, etc., arranged so that the liquid contents form a seal which prevents passage of air or gas, but permits the flow of liquids.
  6. 7.A place in a water pipe, pump, etc., where air accumulates for want of an outlet.
  7. 8.A wagon, or other vehicle. [Colloq.] Thackeray.
  8. 9.A kind of movable stepladder. Knight. Trap stairs, a staircase leading to a trapdoor. -- Trap tree (Bot.) the jack; -- so called because it furnishes a kind of birdlime. See 1st Jack.
  9. 10.To catch in a trap or traps; as, to trap foxes.
  10. 11.Fig.: To insnare; to take by stratagem; to entrap. "I trapped the foe." Dryden.
  11. 12.To provide with a trap; to trap a drain; to trap a sewer pipe. See 4th Trap, 5.
  12. 13.To set traps for game; to make a business of trapping game; as, to trap for beaver.

Sources