[f. TRIP v. + -ER1.] One who or that which trips.
1. One who dances; one who moves with light, sprightly steps; in quot. a. 1847 transf. applied to a shoe or slipper.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 246. A daunsere, a trippere on tapitis.
1576. Gascoigne, Grief of Joye, iv. Wks. (Roxb.), II. 299. Dancyng delights are like a whyrlyng wheele … Thes tryppers strive to throwe theire braynes awaye As wheeles voyde water.
1594. Nashe, Unfort. Trav., Wks. (Grosart), V. 106. [The ostrich] outstrippeth the nimblest trippers of his feathered condition in footmanshippe.
1691. Dryden, King Arthur, IV. i. Ye Sylvan trippers of the green.
a. 1847. Eliza Cook, When I wore red shoes, i. What were Cinderella’s slippers To my pair of fairy trippers?
2. One who or that which causes to stumble. Also tripper-up; spec. in slang: see quots. 1887, 1904.
1605. Camden, Rem. (1657), 76. A tripper, or supplanter.
1860. C. A. Collins, Eye-witness, vi. 81. He has either been tripped up, or has stumbled over some defect in the ice, and the tripper up or the ice itself, as the case may be, will at such times come in for certain remarks which are the reverse of complimentary.
1887. Daily Chron., 18 Nov. (Farmer). A witness at the East End inquest yesterday alluded to ‘trippers up.’… ‘A man who trips you up and robs you.’
1904. Sweeney, Scotland Yard, xii. 313. Women known as trippers up, who preyed on drunken seamen.
1905. W. E. Geil, Yankee in Pigmy Land, iv. 44. Roots were encountered. They were regular trippers.
3. One who or that which stumbles (lit. and fig.).
1806. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., IV. 569. A sipper is a tripper.
1856. Titan Mag., Nov., 415/1. Our [church] service is spoil’d by … The trippers—the clippers—the impudent skippers.
1903. Union Mag., Nov., 513/1. Dr. Young’s camel was a ‘tripper’ and it stumbled and threw the Doctor over its head.
4. One who goes on a trip, or short journey or voyage for pleasure; an excursionist. colloq.
Cheap tripper, one who travels by a cheap trip.
1813. Drakard’s Paper, 3 Oct., in Ashton, Mod. Street Ballads (1888), 80. This to the trippers to the seaside for a week would have been a serious affair.
1851. Eliza Cook’s Jrnl., 19 July, 177/1. The Tripper is the growth of railways and monster trains.
1872. Hartley, Yorkshire Ditties, Ser. II. 140. A lot of cheap trippers ’at’s just com’d for a day.
1899. Kitchin, in Ruskin in Oxford, etc. (1904), 154. The modern tripper leaves only desolation and dirty paper behind him.
b. attrib. and Comb.
1904. Daily Chron., 17 Sept., 3/1. These pictures were painted in tripper haunts.
1907. H. Wyndham, Flare of Footlights, xii. Pull us down to the island. The tripper element won’t be so conspicuous there.
1909. Westm. Gaz., 7 Aug., 4/3. The tripper-thronged part of the island.
5. A street railroad conductor or other employee who is paid by the trip or journey. U.S.
1891. in Cent. Dict.
6. Mech. A contrivance for tripping; a trip.
1870. Eng. Mech., 14 Jan., 430/1. To each rod a tripper or pallet is affixed.
1893. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., Dec., 717. As soon as the sheaf has attained the required size it automatically raises a tripper.
1908. Blackw. Mag., Jan., 59/2. The tripper works the air-delay valve.
