spring-trap

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