Word.ws English Dictionary

trip wire

trip wire is the alternative form of tripwire.

Meaning of tripwire

Noun

tripwire (plural tripwires)

  1. A cord or wire arranged so that when snagged or pulled by an intruder, it will trigger a detector or trap or a device, such as a land mine.
    • Seeing the tripwire of a nearby bouncing Betty gave us cold chills, and we moved all the more slowly through the woods.
    Synonyms:
    trip cord, tripline
  2. (figuratively) Any means of detecting intruders or attackers.
    • The continued presence of U.S. troops as a tripwire force in Macedonia is an increasingly risky venture.1994, Diplomat, volume 5, page 67

See all 3 meanings of tripwire

Forms of trip wire

pluraltrip wires

Questions about trip wire

What is trip wire the alternative form of?
Trip wire is the alternative form of tripwire.

Words near trip wire in the dictionary

  1. trip trap
  2. trip trapped
  3. trip trapping
  4. trip traps
  5. trip up
  6. trip wire
  7. trip wires
  8. trip working
  9. trip workings
  10. trip-hammer
  11. trip-hammers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trip wire (page history and authors); tripwire (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.

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