trip wire
3
6.1
- noun
- /trɪp waɪər/
:
cable trampa
- The trip wire bows against his shin, and ...
Examples
-
The soldiers laid a trip wire around the perimeter to warn them of approaching enemies.
-
As he ran down the hill in the snow, he reached a trip wire for an enemy.
Blog text (4) -
I got him over the trip wire, and we made it into town without getting shot.
Blog text (4) -
Gordy burns through the monofilament trip wire.
Fiction book (2002) -
The trip wire is designed to yank the can off, allowing the grenade to explode at chest level.
Fiction book (2002) -
So they use bloodhounds, thermal cameras, trip wires, all kinds of methods of detection, and they never find a gardener.
-
"I had escaped a mine trip wire, an enemy shelling, and now a German burp gun all within hours of each other," Sannella said.
Blog text (4) -
Be careful when walking in the dark; you might trip over a trip wire someone has set up.
-
After the demonstration, they explained how the trip wire worked to activate the laser alarm.
Synonyms
13
7.7
A safety device that stops a machine when triggered
1
9.9
A device that automatically stops a machine by opening a switch
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituent meanings ('trip' as a triggering mechanism and 'wire' as a thin strand) yield a clear literal image of a wire that causes something to be triggered, so part of the sense is directly derivable. However, the military sense given is a metaphorical extension (a small force that will 'trigger' larger intervention), which is not fully predictable without recognizing the metaphorical transfer, making the overall MWE only partially transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Trip wire comes from the simple, literal picture of a low wire that someone can trip over to 'activate' a trap, alarm, camera, or weapon. That's why today trip wire means a hidden wire placed to 'activate' a device when someone walks into it.