Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A going from one place to another; a journey.
  • noun A stumble or fall.
  • noun A maneuver causing someone to stumble or fall.
  • noun A mistake.
  • noun A hallucinatory experience induced by a psychedelic drug.
  • noun An intense, stimulating, or exciting experience.
  • noun A usually temporary but absorbing interest or preoccupation.
  • noun A certain way of life or situation.
  • noun A light or nimble tread.
  • noun A device, such as a pawl, for triggering a mechanism.
  • noun The action of such a device.
  • intransitive verb To stumble.
  • intransitive verb To move nimbly with light rapid steps; skip.
  • intransitive verb To be released, as a tooth on an escapement wheel in a watch.
  • intransitive verb To make a trip.
  • intransitive verb To make a mistake.
  • intransitive verb Slang To have a drug-induced hallucination.
  • intransitive verb To cause to stumble or fall.
  • intransitive verb To trap or catch in an error or inconsistency.
  • intransitive verb To release (a catch, trigger, or switch), thereby setting something in operation.
  • intransitive verb To raise (an anchor) from the bottom.
  • intransitive verb To tip or turn (a yardarm) into a position for lowering.
  • intransitive verb To lift (an upper mast) in order to remove the fid before lowering.
  • idiom (trip the light fantastic) To dance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To run or step lightly; skip, dance, or walk nimbly along; move with a quick, light tread.
  • To make a brisk movement with the feet; prance.
  • To take a voyage or journey; make a jaunt or excursion.
  • To stumble; strike the foot against something so as to lose the step and come near falling; make a false step; lose the footing.
  • Hence Figuratively, to make a false movement; err; go wrong; be guilty of an inconsistency or an inaccuracy.
  • To rush by: said of deer.
  • Synonyms Hop, Leap, etc. See skip.
  • To perform with a light or tripping step, as a dance.
  • To cause to stumble or fall, make a false step, or lose the footing by catching or entangling the feet or suddenly checking their free action: often followed by up.
  • To cause to stumble by placing an obstruction in the way; hence, to give a wrong turn to, or cause to halt or stumble, by presenting a mental or moral stumbling-block.
  • To catch in a fault, offense, or error; detect in a misstep or blunder.
  • Nautical: To loose, as an anchor from the bottom by means of its cable or buoy-rope.
  • To turn, as a yard, from a horizontal to a vertical position.
  • Theat., to double in the center: said of a drop so situated that there is not room enough to hoist it out of sight.
  • In mech.: To strike against, as a moving part against an obstruction.
  • To release suddenly, as the clutch of the windlass of a pile-driver, or the valve-closing mechanism in the trip-gear of a steam-engine, etc.
  • noun A piece (?).
  • noun A light, short step; a lively movement of the feet.
  • noun A journey or voyage; an excursion; a jaunt; specifically, in transportation, the performance of service one way over a route, the performance of service both ways being a round trip.
  • noun A sudden seizure or catch, as that by which a wrestler throws his antagonist.
  • noun A stumble by the loss of foothold or a striking of the foot against an object.
  • noun In machinery, a hitting of a moving part against some obstruction to its free movement.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, act of tripping, from trippen, to trip, from Old French tripper, to stamp the foot, of Germanic origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French tripper (noun is from the verb), from a Frankish source: compare Middle Dutch trippen, Middle Low German trippen (Danish trippe), Frisian tripje.

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Examples

  • Visualizing GPS Tracks for Trips with GE Plugin - Last week I noticed an interesting application of the Google Earth plugin for playing back a GPS track with photos on a travel site called @trip (www. a-trip.com). @trip, like many GPS track travel sites, lets you upload your GPS track and photos.

    Megite Technology News: What's Happening Right Now 2009

  • More, you can easily share your outdoor sports and trip playback with complete tracks and geotagged photos on @trip, Google Maps, Google Earth, Picasa and Flickr.

    Newswire Today - Free Newswire - Press Releases Distribution 2009

  • Visualizing GPS Tracks for Trips with GE Plugin - Last week I noticed an interesting application of the Google Earth plugin for playing back a GPS track with photos on a travel site called @trip (www. a-trip.com). @trip, like many GPS track travel sites, lets you upload your GPS track and photos.

    Megite Technology News: What's Happening Right Now 2009

  • Katherine Tyler's cross-country train trip is unexpectedly derailed when she is kidnapped by an unscrupulous band of outlaws.

    Train From Marietta by Dorothy Garlock: Book summary 2010

  • One runner whose progeny suggests she will be well suited by today's step up in trip is Chasse Coeur, who is likely to be well supported in the seller at Warwick.

    Talking Horses Tony Paley 2010

  • Well known guidebook writer and Mexican folkart expert, Francis Toor, described it thus: The Colima_Manzanillo Train trip is through beautiful agricultural and mountainous country with rivers, small lakes, canyons and volcanoes.

    Railroads in western Mexico: the next train to arrive.... 2008

  • Well known guidebook writer and Mexican folkart expert, Francis Toor, described it thus: The Colima_Manzanillo Train trip is through beautiful agricultural and mountainous country with rivers, small lakes, canyons and volcanoes.

    Railroads in western Mexico: the next train to arrive.... 2008

  • The copper canyon train trip is probably the most worthwhile tourist thing in the area.

    Staying in Chihuahua City 2005

  • The copper canyon train trip is probably the most worthwhile tourist thing in the area.

    Staying in Chihuahua City 2005

  • What should concern us about the Khrushchev-Bulganin trip is not that they cavorted like clumsy elephants - in our judgment - but that they saw and were seen by millions.

    A Two Way Iron Curtain 1956

Comments

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  • Contronymic in the sense: go along lightly vs. stumble.

    January 31, 2007