Trip

How to spell trip

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce trip

What does trip mean?

1. nounA journey or excursion to a place and usually back again.
2. verbTo catch the foot on something and lose balance, or to cause someone to do so.
3. verbTo set off or activate a mechanism, switch, or sensor.

Trip in a sentence

• noun

  The business trip to Berlin lasted three days.

• verb

  Be careful not to trip on the loose cable.

• verb

  A sudden surge can trip the circuit breaker.

• noun

  They booked a weekend trip to the coast.

• verb

  The uneven pavement made several runners trip.

• verb

  The motion detector will trip the alarm.

Where does trip come from?

Language of origin: French

This little word reaches English through the Old French verb triper or treper, meaning 'to leap, stamp, or strike with the feet', which itself drew on a Middle Dutch source trippen, 'to skip or hop'. When it entered Middle English in the 1300s the earliest sense was about light, quick footwork: to trip was to step nimbly, almost to dance. From that lively footing came two opposite outcomes that survive today: the graceful 'tripping along' and the unfortunate catching of the foot that makes someone stumble. The noun meaning 'a journey or excursion' grew later, around the 1600s, from the idea of a short, nimble venture out and back, before it expanded to cover holidays and longer travels. The mechanical sense, as in tripping a switch or a sensor, borrows the same picture of a quick action that sets something off.

How the word is built

• trip (single root, from Middle Dutch/Old French trippen 'to tread or stamp lightly'); no prefix or suffix