[a. F. trapèze in same senses, ad. L. TRAPEZIUM.]
1. An apparatus for gymnastic exercises and feats, consisting of a horizontal cross-bar suspended by two ropes in the manner of a swing.
Prob. orig. applied to a kind in which the ropes formed a trapezium (in sense 1 b) with the roof and cross-bar.
1852. The Era, 25 July, 1/2. The Italian Brothers appear in Extraordinary Double Trapeze performance, at an altitude of Seventy Feet from the ground.
1861. Sat. Rev., 22 June, 635. The ring is neither more nor less likely to cause death than the rope or the trapèze.
1865. Public Opinion, 21 Jan., 81. His performances are of a very extraordinary character; among other things, he holds on to the trapeze by his teeth.
1877. Black, Green Past., xxxvi. Will you … show the boys how to twist round a trapeze.
1880. Encycl. Brit., XI. 350/2. The trapeze consists of a horizontal bar suspended by ropes at a height of 4 or 5 feet from the floor.
1908. Daily Chron., 11 June, 1/4. At this altitude of two miles above the ground her feet became entangled in the trapeze ropes.
2. = TRAPEZIUM. rare–0.
1864. in Webster: hence in later Dicts.
Hence Trapezing, performance on the trapeze.
1865. Mrs. Craik, in Lancaster Exam., 9 Aug., 1/3. But Johnny wished to stop trapezing and settle in some other line.
1894. G. Du Maurier, Trilby, I. 70. Fencing and boxing and trapezing seemed to be more in her line.
1905. Daily Chron., 6 June, 3/1. People who are revivified by trapezings and comic songs have no individuality to be recreated.
