Rat-trap

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    That shuts forcibly or holds tight, like a rat trap.

    "But above, perched each upon its own stone, tall, gray, and withered, more like dead and dried specimens than actual living creatures, sat the horrible males, absolutely motionless save for the rolling of their red eyes or an occasional snap of their rat-trap beaks as a dragon-fly went past them."

  2. 2
    Of the mouth, resembling a rat trap; large and ugly.

    "He smiled, his wide rat-trap mouth splitting to show bad teeth."

Synonyms

All synonyms
booby trapdeadfalldecoyginminemousetrap

Example

More examples

"Being at a loss for a coachman, Cinderella said, "I will go and see if there is not a rat in the rat-trap—we may make a coachman of him." "You are right," replied her godmother; "go and look.""

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.