▪ I. tripper, n.
(ˈtrɪpə(r))
[f. trip v. + -er1.]
One who or that which trips.
1. One who dances; one who moves with light, sprightly steps; in quot. a 1847 transf. applied to a shoe or slipper.
| c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 246 A daunsere, a trippere on tapitis. 1576 Gascoigne Grief of Joye iv. Wks. (Roxb.) II. 299 Dancyng delights are like a whyrlyng wheele..Thes tryppers strive to throwe theire braynes awaye As wheeles voyde water. 1594 Nashe Unfort. Trav. Wks. (Grosart) V. 106 [The ostrich] outstrippeth the nimblest trippers of his feathered condition in footmanshippe. 1691 Dryden King Arthur iv. i, Ye Sylvan trippers of the green. a 1847 Eliza Cook When I wore red shoes i, What were Cinderella's slippers To my pair of fairy trippers? |
2. One who or that which causes to stumble. Also tripper-up; spec. in slang: see quots. 1887, 1904.
| 1605 Camden Rem. (1657) 76 A tripper, or supplanter. 1860 C. A. Collins Eye-witness vi. 81 He has either been tripped up, or has stumbled..The tripper up..will..come in for certain remarks which are the reverse of complimentary. 1887 Daily Chron. 18 Nov. (Farmer), A witness at the East End inquest yesterday alluded to ‘trippers up’... ‘A man who trips you up and robs you’. 1904 Sweeney Scotland Yard xii. 313 Women known as trippers up, who preyed on drunken seamen. 1905 W. E. Geil Yankee in Pigmy Land iv. 44 Roots were encountered. They were regular trippers. |
3. One who or that which stumbles (lit. and fig.).
| 1806 W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. IV. 560 A sipper is a tripper. 1856 Titan Mag. Nov. 415/1 Our [church] service is spoil'd by..The trippers—the clippers—the impudent skippers. 1903 Union Mag. Nov. 513/1 Dr. Young's camel was a ‘tripper’ and it stumbled and threw the Doctor over its head. |
4. a. One who goes on a trip, or short journey or voyage for pleasure; an excursionist. colloq.
cheap tripper, one who travels by a cheap trip.
| 1813 Drakard's Paper 3 Oct. in Ashton Mod. Street Ballads (1888) 80 Trippers to the seaside for a week. 1851 Eliza Cook's Jrnl. 19 July 177 The Tripper is the growth of railways and monster trains. 1872 Hartley Yorkshire Ditties Ser. ii. 140 A lot of cheap trippers 'at's just com'd for a day. 1899 Kitchin in Ruskin in Oxford etc. (1904) 154 The modern tripper leaves only desolation and dirty paper behind him. |
b. attrib. and Comb.
| 1904 Daily Chron. 17 Sept. 3/1 These pictures were painted in tripper haunts. 1907 H. Wyndham Flare of Footlights xii, Pull us down to the island. The tripper element won't be so conspicuous there. 1909 Westm. Gaz. 7 Aug. 4/3 The tripper-thronged part of the island. |
5. A street railroad conductor or other employee who is paid by the trip or journey. U.S.
| 1882 J. D. McCabe New York by Sunlight & Gaslight 244 The ‘trippers’, as those men are called who only run three-quarters of a day, get $1·50. 1950 Reading (Pennsylvania) Times 28 Feb., They had refused to operate ‘tripper’ or extra, runs because five members of the union had been furloughed. The company said this situation resulted in the failure of nine ‘tripper’ runs to be made. |
6. Mech. A contrivance for tripping; a trip.
| 1870 Eng. Mech. 14 Jan. 430/1 To each rod a tripper or pallet is affixed. 1893 Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. Dec. 717 As soon as the sheaf has attained the required size it automatically raises a tripper. 1908 Blackw. Mag. Jan. 59/2 The tripper works the air-delay valve. |
7. One who experiences hallucinations induced by a drug, esp. LSD. slang (orig. U.S.).
| 1966 T. Leary in Playboy Sept. 110/2 These episodes can be dealt with easily by an experienced guide who recognizes where the LSD tripper is caught. 1968 New Scientist 3 Oct. 38/3 LSD ‘trippers’..need no sleep. 1972 Village Voice (N.Y.) 1 June 78/4 When I returned several days later, Wheeler's was in an uproar over the discovery of a dead tripper. 1979 B. Malamud Dubin's Lives i. 29 One of the swamis there, a secret acid tripper, got on my nerves. |
▪ II. tripper, v. colloq. rare.
(ˈtrɪpə(r))
[f. the n.]
intr. To behave like a tripper (sense 4); to take trips or excursions.
| 1959 G. Jenkins Twist of Sand ii. 41 Trippering up and down the coast. 1974 ‘S. Harvester’ Forgotten Road iii. 37 They trippered around Istanbul for some days. |