[Goes with TRIG v.1; the vb. being app. the source of the sb.]
1. A wedge or block placed under a wheel or cask to prevent it from rolling; hence in a mine, a bar used as a brake for the wheel of a tram; also U.S., a brake-shoe, a skid; in extended use applied to any material, as hay or gravel, laid on a slide to check the motion of a sledge going over it. In quot. 1647 fig. Cf. TRIGGER2.
Its fig. use in quot. 1647 points to an earlier literal use: see also TRIG v.1
1647. R. Stapylton, Juvenal, xvi. 62. Nor is his suite in danger to be stopt, Or with the trigges of long demurrers propt.
1830. Seba Smith, Major J. Downing (1860), 72. I’ve seen the wheels chocked with a little trig not bigger than a cat’s head.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Trig, a wedge or block to prop up a cask, or to stop a wheel.
1883. Gresley, Gloss. Coal Mining, Trig, a sprag used for stopping or putting the brake on trams, wagons, &c.
1886. J. Barrowman, Sc. Mining Terms, 68. Trig, a piece of wood laid in front of a waggon wheel to stop its motion.
† 2. Thieves’ slang. See quot. Obs. (perh. a different word, or ? belonging to TRIG sb.2)
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Trig, a bit of stick, paper, &c., placed by thieves in the keyhole of … the door of a house, which they suspect to be uninhabited; if the trig remains unmoved the following day, it is a proof that no person sleeps in the house. This … is called trigging the jigger.
