trap

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
trap1

▶noun

• 1 a device or enclosure designed to catch and retain animals.

• 2 an unpleasant situation from which it is hard to escape.

  ■ a trick betraying someone into acting contrary to their interests or intentions.

• 3 a container or device used to collect a specified thing.

  ■ a curve in the waste pipe from a bath, basin, or toilet that is always full of liquid to prevent the upward passage of gases.

• 4 a bunker or other hollow on a golf course.

• 5 the compartment from which a greyhound is released at the start of a race.

• 6 a device for hurling an object such as a clay pigeon into the air to be shot at.

• 7 a light, two-wheeled carriage pulled by a horse or pony.

• 8 informal a person's mouth: keep your trap shut!

• 9 (traps) informal (among jazz musicians) drums or percussion instruments.

▶verb (traps, trapping, trapped)

• 1 catch (an animal) in a trap.

• 2 prevent from escaping.

  ■ catch (something) somewhere so that it cannot be freed.

• 3 trick into doing something.

– derivatives
trap-like adjective.

– origin OE træppe (in coltetræppe ‘Christ's thorn’); rel. to MDu. trappe and med. L. trappa, of uncertain origin.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
trap2

▶verb (traps, trapping, trapped) (usu. as adj. trapped) archaic put trappings on (a horse).

– origin ME: from the obs. noun trap ‘trappings’, from OFr. drap ‘drape’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
trap3 (also traprock)

▶noun N. Amer. basalt or a similar dark, fine-grained igneous rock.

– origin C18: from Swed. trapp, from trappa ‘stair’ (because of the often stair-like appearance of its outcroppings).