Trip | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Trip, v. i.

verbintransitive

v. i. [imp. & p. p. TRIPPED (trĭpt); p. pr. & vb. n. TRIPPING.] [D. trippen, trippelen, Dan. trippe, Sw. trippa, Ger. trippen, trippeln, Goth. trimpan, O. Fr. triper, treper, Pr. trepar, W. tripiaw, Armor. tripa, trēpa.]

Sense 1. To move with light, quick steps; to walk or move lightly; to skip; to move the feet nimbly.

*On the tawny sands and shelves Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves. Milton.*

*She bounded by, and tripped so light They had not time to take a steady sight. Dryden.*

Sense 2. To take a brief or sudden journey; to make a jaunt; to travel.

Sense 3. To take a quick step, as when in danger of losing the balance; to make a false step; to lose footing; to make a false movement. “Till his tongue trips.” Locke.

A blind will thereupon comes to be led by a blind understanding: there is no remedy, but it must trip and stumble. South.

Sense 4. To be guilty of a misstep; to commit an offense against morality, propriety, or rule; to err; to mistake; to fail.

Virgil is so exact in every word that none can be changed but for a worse; he pretends sometimes to trip, but it is to make you think him in danger when most secure. Dryden.

Trip, v. t.

verbtransitive

[See supra.] 1. To cause to take a false step; to cause to lose the footing, stumble, or fall; to throw off the balance; to supplant;—often followed by up; as, to trip up a man in wrestling; to trip up the heels. The words of Hobbes’s defense trip up the heels of his cause. Bramhall.

Hence, to overthrow by depriving of support; to supplant; to cause to fail. “To trip the course of law.” Shak.
To detect in a misstep; to catch; to convict.

These women Can trip me if I err. Shak. 4. (Naut.) To loose, as the anchor, from the bottom, by its cable or buoy-rope;—said of a vessel.

Trĭp, n.

noun

n. 1. A quick, light step; a lively movement of the feet; a skip.

His heart bounded as he could sometimes hear the trip of a light, female step glide to or from the door of the hut. W. Scott.

Sense 2. A brief journey, or a voyage; an excursion or jaunt.

I took a trip to London on the death of a queen. Pope.

Sense 3. A false step; a stumble; a misstep; a loss of footing or balance.

Sense 4. A slight error; a failure; a mistake. “Imperfect words, with childish trips.” Milton. “Each seeming trip, and each digressive start.” Harte.

Sense 5. A stroke, or catch, by which a wrestler supplants his antagonist. “And watches with a trip his foe to foil.” Dryden.

It is the sudden trip in wrestling that fetches a man to the ground. South.

Sense 6. (Naut.) A single board or tack in plying to windward.

Sense 7. A small flock of sheep, or a small stock of them. [Scot. and Prov. Eng.] Halliwell.

Sense 8. A troop; a host. [Obs.] R. Brunne.

Sense 9. A large number; a herd or flock. [Scot.]