Word.ws English Dictionary

booby-trap

booby-trap is the alternative form of booby trap.

Meaning of booby trap

Noun

booby trap (plural booby traps)

  1. An antipersonnel device deliberately hidden or disguised as a harmless object.
  2. A practical joke by which something is made to fall upon someone entering through a door, or the like.
  3. (broadly) An unforeseen source of danger; a pitfall.

Verb

booby-trap (third-person singular simple present booby-traps, present participle booby-trapping, simple past and past participle booby-trapped)

  1. (transitive) To set up with booby traps; to plant a booby trap on.
    • Transport for London and the RMT union are united in their condemnation of anti-COVID vaccination extremists who are booby-trapping posters on the London Underground and other stations with razor blades.2021 September 22, “Network News: Station posters booby-trapped”, in RAIL, number 940, page 11
    • Israeli soldiers who combed slowly through the village on Tuesday warned visiting journalists to stay out of homes that had not been cleared, warning they could be booby-trapped with explosives.2023 October 11, Emma Graham-Harrison, “Hamas gunmen ‘killed families in their beds’ at Kfar Aza kibbutz, say Israeli forces”, in The Guardian

Forms of booby-trap

Noun
pluralbooby-traps
Verb
third-person singular presentbooby-traps
present participlebooby-trapping
past participlebooby-trapped
pastbooby-trapped

Questions about booby-trap

What does booby-trap mean?
Booby-trap means to set up with booby traps; to plant a booby trap on.
What is booby-trap the alternative form of?
Booby-trap is the alternative form of booby trap.
What part of speech is booby-trap?
Booby-trap is a verb.
What is the past tense of booby-trap?
The past tense of booby-trap is booby-trapped.

Words near booby-trap in the dictionary

  1. booby prizes
  2. booby trap
  3. booby traps
  4. booby-hatch
  5. booby-hatches
  6. booby-trap
  7. booby-trapped
  8. booby-trapping
  9. booby-traps
  10. boobyalla
  11. boobyallas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: booby-trap (page history and authors); booby trap (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “booby-trap.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/booby-trap. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.