The phrase ‘booby trap’ has been in the news in the United States a lot lately (click here to view a news report where the phrase booby trap is used in context) so I would like to explain what this phrase means and the origin of these words. First of all this noun phrase is two separate words each with their own meaning: ‘booby’ and ‘trap’. Let’s define these two words to start.
booby (noun) – 1) a stupid or foolish person; 2) slang term for a woman’s breast; 3) the name of a type of sea bird (this bird often appears awkward or clumsy when walking thus making it look foolish or silly which relates to the first definition presented)
trap (noun) – device or enclosure designed to catch or retain a person or animal
As you can see here the definition of trap is very straight forward (note: the word trap can also be used as a verb), but the definition of booby is a bit more complex because there are multiple unrelated meanings for this word. The first definition provided above for ‘booby’ is the definition that is related to the phrase ‘booby trap’. The other two definitions above for the word booby are good for you to know, but they are unrelated to this phrase. As a side note, the word booby in English may be related to the word “bobo” in Spanish which also means stupid or foolish.
Knowing what these two words mean separately will help you understand what they mean when they are put together into this noun phrase. The following is the definition of this noun phrase booby trap.
booby trap (noun) – a device designed to harm or surprise a person or animal that is triggered by the actions of the person or animal that is trapped
In plain English a booby trap is a trap that is made by one person, but then triggered by the person who is caught in the trap. This phrase implies that the person with the misfortune to be caught in the trap is caught because that person is a “booby” or foolish. In English the phrase ‘booby trap’ originally was used to describe pranks or jokes that children played on one another, but during World War I this phrase began to be used to describe more serious and dangerous traps used in by men fighting in war.
The picture below shows different places a booby trap could be placed in order to be triggered by an unknowing victim. Although this is a somewhat sad word when you think about all the damage and hurt booby traps can and do cause, I hope this explanation helps you better understand this phrase when you see or hear it used in the future.
