booby trap meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

booby-trap

verbalso spelled booby-trap

To set up with booby traps; to plant a booby trap on.

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.2021 September 22, “Network News: Station posters booby-trapped”, in RAIL, number 940, page 11:
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.2023 October 11, Emma Graham-Harrison, “Hamas gunmen ‘killed families in their beds’ at Kfar Aza kibbutz, say Israeli forces”, in The Guardian:

noun

Etymology From booby (“dunce, idiot”).

Government, Military, Politics, War An antipersonnel device deliberately hidden or disguised as a harmless object.

A practical joke by which something is made to fall upon someone entering through a door, or the like.

Broadly An unforeseen source of danger; a pitfall.