traipse

/tɹeɪps/

traipse verb: to walk in a messy or unattractively casual way; to trail through dirt.

Verb

traipse (third-person singular simple present traipses, present participle traipsing, simple past and past participle traipsed)

(intransitive) To walk in a messy or unattractively casual way; to trail through dirt.
- Lo next two slipshod Muses traipse along, In lofty madness, meditating song, / With tresses staring from poetic dreams, / And never wash'd, but in Castalia’s streams [...].1728, [Alexander Pope], “Book the Third”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. […], Dublin; London: […] A. Dodd, →OCLC, lines 140-144
(colloquial, intransitive) To walk about, especially when expending much effort, or unnecessary effort.
- After traipsing about in the fog they found the grave sure enough.1922, James Joyce, Ulysses
- ... if I was you, babylove, I wouldn't go traipsin [sic] over there.1948, Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms, Part One, 1
Synonyms:

gad, travel, walk
(colloquial, intransitive) To travel with purpose; usually a significant or tedious amount.
- While you were traipsing round Africa, I had to take care of mum and dad!
- So after all that work, I traipsed down to the shop to grab something to eat.
(colloquial, transitive) To walk (a distance or journey) wearily or with effort
- She only got handy the Union-house on Sunday morning 'a b'lieve, and 'tis supposed here and there that she had traipsed every step of the way from Melchester.1874, Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd
(colloquial, transitive) to walk about or over (a place) aimlessly or insouciantly.

traipse (plural traipses)

A long or tiring walk.
- It was a long traipse uphill all the way home.
Synonyms:

hike, trek
A meandering walk.
- it was an easy traipse down the rocky slope2021, Neal Stephenson, Termination Shock

trek, trudge, tramp: മന്ദോത്സാഹനായി നടക്കുക, നിരുത്സാഹനായി വലിഞ്ഞിഴഞ്ഞു നടക്കുക, തളർന്നുനടക്കുക, ആയാസപ്പെട്ടു നടക്കുക, പണിപ്പെട്ടു നടക്കുക, നടന്നുഴലുക

She's traipsed off to Borneo to see the lesser spotted pygmy owl, or something like that.
Ramy murmured a quiet du'a, and they traipsed through the gate.
And, out of practice, she got mortalled, traipsing home late and messy.

Verb
third-person singular present	traipses
present participle	traipsing
past participle	traipsed
past	traipsed
alternative form	trapes
Noun
plural	traipses

Likely from French trépasser (“pass over or beyond”).

What does traipse mean?: Traipse means to walk in a messy or unattractively casual way; to trail through dirt.
What is traipse in Malayalam?: Traipse in Malayalam is മന്ദോത്സാഹനായി നടക്കുക, നിരുത്സാഹനായി വലിഞ്ഞിഴഞ്ഞു നടക്കുക, തളർന്നുനടക്കുക. See Traipse meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is traipse?: Traipse can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce traipse?: Traipse is pronounced /tɹeɪps/.
What is the past tense of traipse?: The past tense of traipse is traipsed.

Adapted from Wiktionary: traipse (page history and authors); traipse (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-traipse.wav.

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