[f. TRAP v.1 and sb.1]
1. One who sets traps or snares; spec. one engaged in trapping wild animals for their furs.
1768. Pennant, Zool., II. 338. The trappers … bait the trap with a meal worm…: Ten or a dozen nightingales have been caught in a day.
1827. J. F. Cooper, Prairie, II. i. 7. The hunters and trappers on La Platte.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xiii. 31. Trappers and hunters … with their valuable skins and furs.
1857. Tennyson, Enid, 1572. A sudden … cry, As of a wild thing taken in the trap, Which sees the trapper coming thro’ the wood.
attrib. 1851. Mayne Reid, Scald Hunt., Pref. 6. My book is a trapper book.
1899. Daily News, 27 March, 8/2. The authors tell us trapper stories and Red Indian tales.
2. A boy stationed to open and shut a trap-door for the passage of trams in a coal-mine. Also trapper-boy, -lad.
1815. Ann. Philos., VI. 114. The trappers have seats near their doors, and remain by them all the time the pit is at work.
1845. Mrs. Norton, Child of Isl., 22. So lives the little Trapper underground; No glittering sunshine streaks the oosy wall.
1892. Pall Mall G., 19 Aug., 1/3. Mr. Keir Hardie … began life as a trapper boy in a mine.
1900. [trapper lad: see TRAP sb.1 8 b].
3. One who manages a trap in trap-shooting: cf. TRAP sb.1 4.
a. 1892. Hurlingham Club Rules for Pigeon Shooting, § 6. If, in the opinion of the referee, the shooter is balked by any antagonist or looker-on, or by the trapper,… he may be allowed another bird.
1892. Greener, Breech-Loader, 246. It is best to take no heed either of bystanders or trappers when going to the mark.
4. colloq. A horse which draws a ‘trap.’
1883. Pall Mall G., 24 April, 4/1. The hard-worked ‘trapper’ … munches his oats in solitude in many a stable.
1894. Astley, 50 Years Life, I. 57. I … made a journey to Tattersall’s, and bought a very clever trapper, a bay mare.
