Sc. [app. = Du., MFlem. trap flight of steps, stair; MDu., early mod.Du. (Kilian) trappe step; OFris. treppe step of a ladder, etc., EFris. trappe, trap step (of a stair), also (= trap-ledder) ladder with broad flat steps instead of rungs, flight of steps; MLG. trappe, treppe, troppe flight of steps, stair, whence MG. trappe, treppe, Ger., LG. treppe stair; also (from MLG.), Da. trappe, Sw. trappa, Norw. dial. trapp, tropp flight of steps, stair. But the Sc. trap is by some referred directly to TRAP sb.1, as if short for trap-ladder or trap-stair, in sense of a ladder or stair leading up to a trap-door or trap-hole.] A ladder or movable flight of steps leading to a loft or the like.
[1756. Mrs. Calderwood, in Coltness Collect. (Maitl. Cl.), 131. When we came to go up stairs to bed, there was a trap, which is the Dutch name for a stair.]
1808. Jamieson, Trap, a sort of ladder, a moveable flight of wooden steps.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Trap,… a sort of moveable ladder or steps.
1885. A. Munro, Siren Casket (1889), 136. As you enter’d the door of the house from the street You confronted a trap or a ladder.
1899. J. Colville, Scott. Vernacular, 17. Against its wall stood the trap or ladder leading to the garret.
b. attrib. and Comb., as trap-like adj.; trap-ladder [= WFlem. trap-ladder, -leere, EFlem. (Antwerp) trapleer, EFris. trap-ledder a ladder with flat steps, a ‘pair of steps’); trap-stair = trap.
1855. Carlyle, Misc., Prinzenraub (1899), IV. 442. That other little Duke … who had built the biggest bassoon ever heard of; thirty feet high, or so; and was seen playing on it from a *trap-ladder.
1896. J. Lamb, Ann. W. Kilbride, ix. 244. A trap-ladder cost 2s. 6d.
1897. trans. Balzac’s Cousin Pons, 327. Reached by a short ladder, known among builders as a trap-ladder, there was a kind of garret.
1906. Dk. Argyll, Autobiog. & Mem., I. ii. 18. Steep, *traplike wooden stairs.
1833. Loudon, Encycl. Archit., § 164. The bottom [of the stair] might either project two double steps…; or a *trap stair, composed of the two lower steps, and made to fold up, might be resorted to.
1837. J. E. Murray, Summer in Pyrenees, II. 245. A little urchin came down a trap-stair at the further end.
1844. Stephens, Bk. Farm., I. 143. It enters from the straw-barn … by means of the stone or wooden trap-stair.
1847. H. Miller, First Impr., xix. 368. Their terrace-like precipices, that rise over each other step by step—their trap-stairs of trappean rock,—for to this scenic peculiarity the volcanic rocks owe their generic name.
1850. R. Chambers, Burns’ Life & Wks. (1856), I. 145. Almost the only other apartment in the house is a kind of garret-closet, accessible by a narrow trap-stair ascending from the lobby.
