trap

noun

variants or trap music

: rap music typically featuring heavy bass, synthesized drums, and triplet-based (see triplet sense 3) rhythms

Trap, an Atlanta-born rap subgenre, is characterized by sharp snares and booming bass, as well as … minor-key melodies.

—Walter Thompson-Hernández

The start of the digital era saw the popularity of trap music taking over the underground rap scene …

—Kyann-Sian Williams

Just think of how many hip-hop trends, from the street-hardened fatalism and stark beats of trap music to the punchy, triplet flow spawned by Migos' experimentalism, have bubbled up from the underground, and eventually even altered the feel of mainstream pop.

—Jewly Hight

—often used before another noun

Many trap artists utilize the triplet flow …

—Jay Quan

The series follows young adults on the … rap and trap music scene …

—Pablo Sandoval

With "Old Town Road," Lil Nas X twanged country tropes over a trap beat …

—Chris Kelly

Examples of trap in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Palantir didn’t wait to be caught in this trap. —Michael Gregory, The Conversation, 4 June 2026

Videos and photos obtained by the outlet showed rat droppings on the office floor and what appeared to be a dead rat in a trap. —Kimberlee Speakman, PEOPLE, 4 June 2026

Temperature challenge Commercial flight faces a strict weight trap that standard electric motors cannot escape. —Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 3 June 2026

Consider your values and objectives, and avoid falling into the trap of people-pleasing and doing things that aren’t right for you. —Heidi Moawad, Verywell Health, 3 June 2026

Word History

Etymology

probably after trap or trap house "building or apartment where illicit drugs are sold," from trap entry 1

First Known Use

2003, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing trap

• blacklight trap
• death trap
• keep one's trap shut
• leghold trap
• light trap
• live trap
• lobster trap
• poverty trap
• rat trap cheese
• sand trap
• speed trap
• spring a trap
• steel-trap
• thirst trap
• tourist trap
• trap-door spider

Rhymes for trap

• app
• cap
• chap
• clap
• crap
• flap
• frap
• gap
• hap
• lap
• nap
• nappe

Kids Definition

trap

1 of 2 noun

ˈtrap 

1

: a device for catching animals

especially : one that catches by springing shut suddenly

2

: something by which one is caught unawares

3

a

: a device for hurling clay pigeons into the air

b

: sand trap

4

: a light usually one-horse carriage with springs

5

: any of various devices for preventing passage of one thing often while allowing something else to proceed

especially : a device for drains or sewers consisting of a bend or chamber in which the liquid forms a seal to prevent the passage of sewer gas

6

plural : a group of percussion instruments (as in a dance band)

trap

2 of 2 verb

trapped; trapping

1

a

: to catch in or as if in a trap

trap a bird

b

: to place in a restricted position : confine

was almost trapped in the burning building

2

: to provide or set with a trap

3

: to engage in trapping animals (as for fur)

trapper noun