mousetrap
To trap; to trick or fool into a bad situationTo trap; to trick or fool (someone) into a bad situation.
Recorded US: Speaker: Flame, not lame Recorder: Flame, not lame, CC0, Wikimedia Commons
» Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.
CK · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
2 senses(figuratively, transitive)To trap; to trick or fool (someone) into a bad situation.
(Internet, transitive)To prevent (the user) from leaving a website by opening another copy when it is closed.
Examples
5 sentencesBuild a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.
A mousetrap rids the house of mice.
ruМышеловка избавляет дом от мышей. — marafon
The mouse got caught in a mousetrap.
ruМышь попала в мышеловку. — marafon
Man invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever have thought to build a mousetrap!
deDer Mensch hat die Atombombe erfunden - aber keine Maus würde je auf die Idee kommen, eine Mausefalle zu bauen! — Esperantostern
You can't legally set a mousetrap in California without a hunting license.
Origin
From Middle English mouse-trappe, mous trappe, mouse trape, equivalent to mouse + trap. CoFrom Middle English mouse-trappe, mous trappe, mouse trape, equivalent to mouse + trap. Cognate with Dutch muizetrap, muizentrap (“mousetrap”), German Low German Muustrappe, Muustrapp (“mousetrap”). In the Internet sense, refers to a computer mouse.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
mousetraps, mousetrapping, mousetrapped, mousetrapped| Base form | mousetrap · to mousetrap |
|---|---|
| 3rd person singular | mousetraps |
| Present participle | mousetrapping |
| Past simple | mousetrapped |
| Past participle | mousetrapped |
regular · Lesson
Lessons for this word
3 lessons- A1Present simple — Because it is a verb
- A1Past simple, regular verbs — Because of its past form
- A2Present perfect: introduction — Because of its past participle
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.