Word.ws English Dictionary

trap

/tɹæp/[t̠ɹ̠̊˔æp]

trap noun: a machine or other device designed to catch (and sometimes kill) animals, either by holding them in a container, or by catching hold of part of the body.

trap: a machine or other device designed to catch (and sometimes kill) animals, either by holding them in...
Image: Robert Lawton, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

trap (countable and uncountable, plural traps)

  1. A machine or other device designed to catch (and sometimes kill) animals, either by holding them in a container, or by catching hold of part of the body.
    • I put down some traps in my apartment to try and deal with the mouse problem.
    • The Russian bear has always been eager to stick his paw in Latin American waters. Now we've got him in a trap, let's take his leg off right up to his testicles. On second thought, let's take off his testicles, too.1995, Richard Rhodes, quoting Curtis LeMay, “Scorpions in a Bottle”, in Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 574
    Synonyms:
    snare, fang
  2. A trick or arrangement designed to catch someone in a more general sense; a snare.
    • Unfortunately she fell into the trap of confusing biology with destiny.
    • God and your majesty / Protect mine innocence, or I fall into / The trap is laid for me!1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio)...
    1. (broadly) A (usually fictional) location or feature originally added to a map to detect plagiarism and copyright violations by other map makers or map services.
      • trap street
    2. (derogatory, informal, offensive, slang, sometimes, usually) Someone with male-typical anatomy who passes as female.
      • And trust me you don't want to see a trap ether. I like my girls without a ding-a-ling.2011 May 27, “Re: anons target US chamber”, in alt.2600 (Usenet)
      • man says he isn't a fag when asking
        to masturbate with my body. positions
        himself as conqueror, calls my body
        trick,
        trap,
        tranny.
        man fucks witch
        embarrassed by his own release […]2020, jaye simpson, it was never going to be okay, Harbour Publishing, →ISBN
    3. (informal, slang, sometimes considered offensive) A fictional character from anime, or related media, who is coded as or has qualities typically associated with a gender other than the character's ostensible gender; otokonoko, josou.
      • Bridget is the super trap2007 Weekend Reading: Bridget is straight by 8bit Brian of Destructoid, reply by batempo on 20 August 2007
      • Of course Kei would look like a young woman, that's how traps work!2010 July 20, Antonio E. Gonzalez, “Re:Moyashimon Live Action”, in rec.arts.anime.misc (Usenet)
  3. An exception generated by the processor or by an external event.
  4. Any device used to hold and suddenly release an object.
    • They shot out of the school gates like greyhounds out of the trap.
    1. A covering over a hole or opening; a trapdoor.
      • Close the trap, would you, before someone falls and breaks their neck.
    2. (archaic) A kind of movable stepladder or set of stairs.
      • There is likewise a cabin trap with five steps.1798 January 3, Edinburgh Weekly Journal, page 5
      • I have to bear my burthen up four traps, or ladders, before I get to the main road which leads to the pit bottom.1842, Ellison Jack (girl, age 11), quoted in The Condition and Treatment of the Children Employed in the Mines, page 48
  5. A place in a water pipe, pump, etc., where air accumulates for lack of an outlet.
  6. A geological structure that creates a petroleum reservoir.
  7. A wooden instrument shaped somewhat like a shoe, used in the game of trapball.
    1. The game of trapball itself.
  8. (US, also, attributive, slang, African-American Vernacular) A vehicle, residential building, or sidewalk corner where drugs are manufactured, packaged, or sold.
    • trap phone
    • trap car
  9. (US, also, attributive, slang, African-American Vernacular) An area, especially of a city, with a low level of opportunity and a high level of poverty and crime; a ghetto; a hood.
    • Maybe T.I was also making connection between fur trapping and living in the trap, or the hood.2018, Kyle T. Mays, Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in North America, page 93
    • Stay in the trap like my name was McCaulk. Dumb-ahh nigger, I think he meant Culkin.2021 November 19, “Pink 3 Remix”performed by PCAJAY
  10. (uncountable) A genre of hip-hop music, with half-time drums and heavy sub-bass.
    Synonyms:
    trap music
  11. (slang) A successful landing on an aircraft carrier using the carrier's arresting gear.
    • After 100 traps, the arresting cables have to be replaced to minimize the danger of a worn or fatigued cable snapping under an aircraft.
  12. (historical) A light two-wheeled carriage with springs.
    • a horse and trap
    • The two women looked down the alley. At the end of the Bottoms a man stood in a sort of old-fashioned trap, bending over bundles of cream-coloured stuff; while a cluster of women held up their arms to him, some with bundles.1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 2, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC
Show 8 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. (slang) A person's mouth.
    • Keep your trap shut.
  2. (slang) Synonym of vagina.
    • But she carries the shawl so well that you never get a peep at her trap until she’s ready to show it to you.1941, Henry Miller, Under the Roofs of Paris (Opus Pistorum), New York: Grove Press, published 1983, page 66
    Synonyms:
    vagina
  3. (archaic, slang) A policeman.
    • “He hung about, not to come over here afore dark, but he’ll be here soon,” replied Chitling. “There’s nowhere else to go to now, for the people at the Cripples are all in custody, and the bar of the ken—I went up there and see it with my own eyes—is filled with traps.”1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Oliver Twist; […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC
  4. (archaic, in plural) Belongings.
    • ...his cabin-mates in Montana losing small valuables from time to time, until at last, these things having been invariably found on Mr. Twain's person or in his "trunk" (newspaper he rolled his traps in)...1870, Mark Twain, Running for Governor
    • "Carry your traps out, Ma?" asked one of the passengers.1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter IX, in Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, page 144
  5. (slang) A cubicle (in a public toilet).
    • I've just laid a cable in trap 2 so I'd give it 5 minutes if I were you.
  6. (gun sports) Trapshooting.
  7. (Australia, historical, slang) A mining license inspector during the Australian gold rush.
    • The miners′ grievances centred on the issue of the compulsory purchase of miners′ licences and the harassment of raids by the licensing police, the ‘traps,’ in search of unlicensed miners.1996, Judith Kapferer, Being All Equal: Identity, Difference and Australian Cultural Practice, page 84
    • Diggers were angered by frequent licence inspections and harassment by 'the traps' (the goldfield police).2006, Helen Calvert, Jenny Herbst, Ross Smith, Australia and the World: Thinking Historically, page 55
  8. (slang, uncountable) The money earned by a prostitute for a pimp.
    • The money clip held thirty-nine hundred dollars, combined with her trap money, she had five thousand dollars for her man.2010, C. J. Land, A Hustler's Tale, page 54
    • The code was to call a pimp and tell him you have his hoe plus turn over her night trap but that was bull because the HOE was out of his stable months before I copped her.2011, Shaheem Hargrove, Sharice Cuthrell, The Rise and Fall of a Ghetto Celebrity, page 55

Verb (1)

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

  1. (transitive) To physically capture, to catch in a trap or traps, or something like a trap.
    • to trap foxes
    • As we age, the major arteries of our bodies frequently become thickened with plaque, a fatty material with an oatmeal-like consistency that builds up along the inner lining of blood vessels. The reason plaque forms isn’t entirely known, but it seems to be related to high levels of cholesterol...2013 July-August, Stephen P. Lownie, David M. Pelz, “Stents to Prevent Stroke”, in American Scientist
  2. (transitive) To ensnare; to take by stratagem; to entrap.
    • Be careful not to trap your finger in the door.
    • She was trapped into admitting the truth.
  3. (transitive) To provide with a trap.
    • to trap a drain
    • to trap a sewer pipe
  4. (intransitive) To set traps for game; to make a business of trapping game; to travel for the purpose of trapping.
    • trap for beaver
    • They trapped north along the river.
  5. (intransitive, slang) To successfully land an aircraft on an aircraft carrier using the carrier's arresting gear.
    • After three consecutive bolters, the pilot finally trapped successfully on the Nimitz.
    Antonyms:
    bolter
  6. (intransitive) To leave suddenly, to flee.
  7. (intransitive) To capture (e.g. an error) in order to handle or process it.
  8. (dated) To attend to and open and close a (trap-)door.
    • For quotations using this term, see Citations:trap.
  9. (informal, offensive, slang, sometimes) Of a 'trap': to trick a (heterosexual) man into having sex, by appearing to be a woman.
    • Straight cis men persist in believing that my transition is all about them—tricking them, trapping them, ruining them.2016, Stefan Horlacher, Transgender and Intersex: Theoretical, Practical, and Artistic Perspectives, Palgrave Macmillan US, page 92
    • A "trap" is basically a trans girl or crossdresser who "tricks" or "traps" a straight male into getting aroused by them and then suddenly reveals their trans status.2019, Rachel Anne Williams, Transgressive: A Trans Woman on Gender, Feminism, and Politics, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, →ISBN, page 32
  10. (intransitive, slang, African-American Vernacular) To sell illegal drugs, especially in a public area.
    • My kicks are wet from trappin' in the rain / Stole these Marshall bikes today / But don't walk in the bikers' lane / Or you're gonna catch a deafaz to the brain2024 June 3, “Wah Gwan Delilah” (3:13 from the start)performed by Snowd4y ft. Drake

Noun (2)

trap (countable and uncountable, plural traps)

  1. A dark coloured igneous rock; (now usually) any nongranitic igneous rock.
    Synonyms:
    trap rock, traprock

Verb (2)

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

  1. To dress with ornaments; to adorn (especially said of horses).
    • She was all trapped out in the gaudiest of clothes.
    • To decke his herce, and trap his tomb-blacke steed1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 16

Noun (3)

trap (plural traps)

  1. (slang) The trapezius muscle.

Noun (4) capitalized: TRAP

TRAP (uncountable)

  1. (US, abbreviation, acronym, legislation) Acronym of targeted regulation of abortion providers.
    • In February, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand South Carolina's TRAP law, which imposes 27 pages of requirements on abortion clinics—providing a virtual blueprint for states that want to create constitutional clinic regulations.2001 September, Barry Yeoman, “The Quiet War on Abortion”, in Mother Jones
  2. (abbreviation, acronym, employment law) Acronym of training-repayment-agreement provision.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of twin reversed arterial perfusion.

trap meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

trap in Hindi

फंदा, फंसाना, फंसाने के लिए

trap in Tamil

trick or arrangement designed to catch someone in a more general sense
வலை valai
device designed to catch or kill animals
பொறி poṟi
belongings
உடைமை uṭaimai

trap in Urdu

پھندا

trap in Bengali

device designed to catch or kill animals
ফাঁদ phãd
More languagesFewer languages
trap in Telugu
ఉచ్చు
trap in Malayalam
കെണി keṇi
trap in Kannada
ಬಲೆ
trap in Punjabi
ਫੰਦਾ
trap in Gujarati
છટકું, ફસાવવું, ફસાવવા
trap in Odia
ଫାନ୍ଦ
trap in Assamese
ফান্দ phando
trap in Nepali
ट्र्याप
trap in Tagalog
bitag
trap in Arabic
فَخّ faḵḵ, مِصْيَدَة miṣyada
trap in Malay
jerat
trap in Persian
تله tale, نژنک nažnak, دام dâm
trap in Thai
กับ gàp, กับดัก gàp-dàk
trap in Vietnamese
bẫy, mỏ

Examples of trap in a sentence

  • “My son is a tranny.” “No, mother dear, I'm a Trap.2021, Coulsdon Writers, Back to the Writing, →ISBN, page 37:
  • When it explains about the trap's problems in HS it was much clearer than the same section of the manga.2013 September 7, Bobbie Sellers, “Re: What's your favouite anime?”, in rec.arts.manga (Usenet):
  • One way to spot a trap is to look for an adam's apple.2013, One Piece: Grand Line 3 Point 5, page 47:
  • They have very generally received the name of trap-rocks, because they often present the appearance of traps or stairs.1847, David Low, Elements of Practical Agriculture, page 37:

All 40 example sentences with trap

Synonyms of trap

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of trap

Forms of trap

Noun
pluraltraps
Verb
third-person singular presenttraps
present participletrapping
past participletrapped
pasttrapped

Past tense of trap: trapped

Plural of trap: traps

Origin of trap

From Middle English trappe, from Old English træppe, treppe (“trap, snare”) (also in betræppan (“to trap”)) from Proto-West Germanic *trappjā (“trap, snare”), from Proto-West Germanic *trappjan (“to step”), from Proto-Germanic *trapjaną (“to tread, stamp”), from Proto-Indo-European *drebʰ- (“to step, trip, trample”). Cognate with Dutch trap (“step, stair”), German Low German Trapp (“step, stair”). Akin also to West Frisian traap (“stepping, treading, stairway”), German Treppe (“step, stair”), Old English træppan (“to step, tread”). Connection to "step" is "that upon which one steps". French trappe and Spanish trampa are ultimately borrowings from Germanic.

Borrowed from Swedish trapp (“step, stair, stairway”), from Middle Low German trappe (“stair, step”).

Akin to Middle English trappe (“trappings, gear”), and perhaps from Old Northern French trape, a byform of Old French drap, a word of the same origin as English drab (“a kind of cloth”).

Words formed from trap

Phrases with trap

122 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with trap

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about trap

What does trap mean?
Trap means a machine or other device designed to catch (and sometimes kill) animals, either by holding them in a container, or by catching hold of part of the body.
What is trap in Hindi?
Trap in Hindi is फंदा, फंसाना, फंसाने के लिए. See Trap meaning in Hindi.
How do you use trap in a sentence?
“My son is a tranny.” “No, mother dear, I'm a Trap.
What part of speech is trap?
Trap can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce trap?
Trap is pronounced /tɹæp/.
What is the plural of trap?
The plural of trap is traps.

Words near trap in the dictionary

  1. tranx
  2. tranylcypromine
  3. Tranzschel's law
  4. Traore
  5. Traores
  6. trap
  7. trap and trace
  8. trap ball
  9. trap bar
  10. trap car
  11. trap cars

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trap (page history and authors); TRAP (page history and authors); trap (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); trap (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); trap (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); trap (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); trap (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); trap (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); trap (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); trap (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-trap.ogg, en-au-trap.ogg.

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