Trap

How to spell trap

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce trap

What does trap mean?

1. nounA device or scheme designed to catch, ensnare, or deceive someone or something.
2. verbTo catch or confine someone or something so that escape is impossible.

Trap in a sentence

• noun

  The gamekeeper set a trap to catch the foxes raiding the henhouse.

• verb

  Heavy snow can trap commuters in their cars for hours.

• noun

  The salesman's cheap offer turned out to be a trap that locked her into a costly contract.

• verb

  The detectives planned to trap the suspect by leaving the warehouse door unlocked.

Where does trap come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Trap comes from the Old English word treppe, meaning a snare or device for catching animals, and it has close cousins across the Germanic languages, including Middle Dutch trappe and Old French trape, all describing some kind of catching contraption. The root is linked to an old Germanic sense of treading or stepping, the idea being that an animal triggers the device by stepping on it; the related verb 'to tread' shares this ancient family. Over the centuries the meaning broadened from the literal hunting snare to any scheme, plan, or situation that catches someone unawares. By the 1300s it was already used figuratively for a plan meant to deceive or ensnare a person. The plumbing sense, a U-shaped bend that holds water to block gases, and the slang sense for the mouth both grew from the same core idea of something that catches and holds. The spelling has stayed mercifully simple, a short single-syllable word with no silent letters to trip up the writer.

How the word is built

• trap (single Old English root; no affixes)