trip
(trĭp)
[Middle English, act of tripping, from trippen, to trip, from Old French tripper, to stamp the foot, of Germanic origin.]
noun
- A going from one place to another; a journey.
- A stumble or fall.
- A maneuver causing someone to stumble or fall.
- A mistake.
- Slang
- A hallucinatory experience induced by a psychedelic drug: an acid trip.
- An intense, stimulating, or exciting experience: a power trip.
- Slang
- A usually temporary but absorbing interest or preoccupation: He's on another health food trip.
- A certain way of life or situation: “deny that his reclusiveness is some sort of deliberate star trip” (Patricia Bosworth)
- A light or nimble tread.
- A device, such as a pawl, for triggering a mechanism.
- The action of such a device.
verb: tripped, trip·ping, trips.
intransitive verb
- To stumble.
- To move nimbly with light rapid steps; skip.
- To be released, as a tooth on an escapement wheel in a watch.
- To make a trip.
- To make a mistake: tripped up on the last question.
- Slang To have a drug-induced hallucination.
transitive verb
- To cause to stumble or fall.
- To trap or catch in an error or inconsistency.
- To release (a catch, trigger, or switch), thereby setting something in operation.
- Nautical
- To raise (an anchor) from the bottom.
- To tip or turn (a yardarm) into a position for lowering.
- To lift (an upper mast) in order to remove the fid before lowering.
idioms
- trip the light fantastic
- To dance.
