Tripped is what a switch is once a safety device has thrown it — cut off on its own because something went wrong. The kettle and the heater on at the same time, a bang from the hall, and half the flat goes dark: a tripped breaker in the fuse box.
You reset a tripped switch by pushing it back up, and until you do, that circuit is dead. The verb behind it is trip, used of the safety device itself: 'the breaker tripped', 'the alarm trips if you open the window'. That is a different trip from the everyday one, where you catch your foot on a step and stumble, and different again from a trip meaning a journey. If a switch keeps tripping, the switch is doing its job — something on the circuit is pulling too much.
1adjectivetrippedSwitched off automatically by a safety device.
“The lights went out because of a tripped fuse.”
2verbwrongOf a safety device, to switch off automatically when something goes wrong.
“The breaker tripped as soon as I plugged in the heater.”
3verbcatchTo catch your foot on something and stumble or fall.
“He tripped over the cable and dropped both plates.”
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Repair & Damage
First appears in chapter 8 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word