Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A trap working by a spring, which may cause a door or bar to fall when the detent is released by the moving of the bait, or may throttle the victim, as in an ordinary form of mouse-trap, etc.
  • noun A form of steam-trap.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • He's still holding my fist, tight below the jaw, two little hands as hard as a spring-trap.

    Stand Up 2010

  • She had a blunt face with a mouth like a spring-trap, prominent eyes fortified by pebble-lenses and thin, grey hair lugged back into a bun.

    Tied Up in Tinsel Marsh, Ngaio, 1895-1982 1972

  • There could be a dozen people in there - contacts, couriers, operators, radio-signallers - and I could walk straight into a spring-trap especially if Benedikt had talked before he died: if they knew he'd given me this address they'd expect me here.

    The Striker Portfolio Hall, Adam 1968

  • “I tried to say as much but he shut up like a spring-trap.”

    Killer Dolphin Marsh, Ngaio, 1895-1982 1966

  • It is no schoolmaster's manual, no elaborated system set to snap like a spring-trap upon the heads of incautious meddlers, -- it is only the very aroma of the married life of a wise and tender poet.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 72, October, 1863 Various

  • When a camel expires in the plain near some nomads 'tents, they sometimes set a spring-trap for jackals near the carcase -- they eat these beasts and sell their skin for a few francs; the traps are craftily concealed underground, with a little brushwood thrown over them to aid the deception.

    Fountains in the Sand Rambles Among the Oases of Tunisia Norman Douglas 1910

  • Guido speaks at first with calm, smiling irony, and later rages like a wild beast caught in a spring-trap; in both cases the verse fits his mood.

    Robert Browning: How to Know Him William Lyon Phelps 1904

  • 'It seems like the world's a big spring-trap, and us in it,' she said slowly.

    Gone to Earth Mary Gladys Meredith Webb 1904

  • The admission was not a wise one; it blanched Dick's lips, but it closed them like a spring-trap.

    The Gold-Stealers A Story of Waddy Edward Dyson 1898

  • They had violent convulsions, in which their jaws snapped with the force of a spring-trap set for vermin.

    Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft 1885

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