Other forms: traps
A trap is a device or plan for catching somebody unawares. Set a trap, walk into a trap, a speed trap.
It works by hiding intent, which is what all traps share whether they are for animals, for drivers or in an argument. A trap question is one designed so that any answer damages you. In plumbing, the trap is the bend that holds water and blocks smells. Note that the word is Old English.
1nountrapA device or plan for catching somebody unawares.
“The farmer set a trap to catch the fox that was killing his chickens.”
2nounbendThe bend in a pipe that holds water and blocks smells.
“The plumber cleaned out the trap under the sink, which was full of hair.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
trap is a snare.
Old English traeppe means a snare, from a root meaning to step. Trip and tramp come from related stepping.
Proto-West Germanic
*trappjā — trap, snare
Old English
træppe
Middle English
trappe
English, today
trap
Built from
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". trappe and trampa are ultimately borrowings from Germanic.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA