sb. pl. colloq. [A modern word of colloquial origin; app. shortened from trappings: see TRAPPING vbl. sb.1 (Some take it as pl. of TRAP sb.1, as referring to the outfit of a trapper.)] Portable articles for dress, furniture, or use; personal effects; baggage; belongings.
1813. Capt. R. M. Cairnes, Lett., 4 April, in Dickson MSS. (ed. J. H. Leslie, 1910), Ser. III. 866. The rest [of the carriages] is for the Jolly Captain’s Shirts and Stockings &c., besides a mule for his other traps.
1828. Craven Gloss., Traps, small tools or implements, always used in the plural number; equivalent to the classical arma.
1830. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 153/2. This was the general signal for getting our ‘traps’ on the ice.
1831. John Bull, 7 Aug., 254. No one thought … that only three days afterwards he would be obliged to pack up his traps and be off.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple, xiii. I packed up my traps and went on shore.
1887. J. Ball, Nat. in S. Amer., 194. To carry some of the traps with which a botanist is usually encumbered.
