booby trapとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From booby (“dunce, idiot”).

発音

名詞

booby trap (plural booby traps)

1. (military) An antipersonnel device deliberately hidden or disguised as a harmless object.
2. A practical joke by which something is made to fall upon someone entering through a door, or the like.
3. (by extension) An unforeseen source of danger; a pitfall.

関連する語

• boobytrap

参考

• canary trap
• honeypot
• IED

参照

• (practical joke): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

動詞

booby-trap (third-person singular simple present booby-traps, present participle booby-trapping, simple past and past participle booby-trapped)

1. (transitive) To set up with booby traps; to plant a booby trap on.
   • 2021 September 22, “Network News: Station posters booby-trapped”, in RAIL, number 940, page 11:

     Transport for London and the RMT union are united in their condemnation of anti-COVID vaccination extremists who are booby-trapping posters on the London Underground and other stations with razor blades.

   • 2023 October 11, Emma Graham-Harrison, “Hamas gunmen ‘killed families in their beds’ at Kfar Aza kibbutz, say Israeli forces”, in The Guardian‎:

     Israeli soldiers who combed slowly through the village on Tuesday warned visiting journalists to stay out of homes that had not been cleared, warning they could be booby-trapped with explosives.