Forms: 4–5 tripet, trypet, 5 trepett, 6 tryppyt, 7 trippett, 9 -it, 8– trippet. [In sense 1 a. OF. tripot, -pout (a. 1350 in Godef.). But in 2–4 associated with or formed from TRIP v., sb.1]
† 1. An evil scheme; a malicious trick or plot. Obs.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. Wace (Rolls), 2911. Ne schal nought Brenne bede me trypet [Petyt MS. treget].
a. 1400. Leg. Rood, viii. 41. Fouled is my fayre fruit, Þat neuer dude tripet ne truit. Ibid., 480. Truyt and tripet to helle shal sterue.
† 2. An act of tripping up, a trip. Obs.
1430–40. Lydg., Bochas, VI. ii. (MS. Bodl. 263), 306. To his pride I [Fortune] gaff a gret tripet.
c. 1450. Mankind, 113, in Macro Plays, 5. Take yow here a trepett!
a. 1500. Image Hypocr., I. 456, in Skelton’s Wks. (1843), II. 420/1. In your holy armes,… Devoutly to clipe it, To caste her with a tryppyt.
1714. Parkyns, Inn-Play (ed. 2), 42. The Hanging Trippet is when you put your Toe behind your Adversary’s Heel, on the same side, with a design to hook his Leg up forwards, and throw him on his Back.
3. The piece of wood pointed at the ends used in tip-cat; the ‘cat’; also the game itself. Also attrib., as trippet-stick. north. dial.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 503/1. Trypet, tripula, trita.
1624. N. Riding Rec. (1885), III. II. 199. Fr. Milnes ordered to be whipped for that he … did on Easter day last in the time of afternoon service play in the Churchyard at Aislaby at a game called Trippett.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Words, Trippit and Coit, a game similar to spell and ore…. Called Trippit and Rack in parts of North. The trippit is a small piece of wood obtusely pointed.
1828. Craven Gloss., Trippet, the ‘cat’ or piece of wood in the game of tip-cat…. The player with his bat, called a trippet stick, strikes it smartly at the end, which causes it to rise in a rotatory motion, high enough to strike it before it falls.
1873. Harland & Wilkinson, Lanc. Leg., 152. Trippet. This game is played in the fields … It is still practised by the colliers…. The trippet is about two inches long, and is made of holly.
b. The trap used in trap-ball; the game of trap-ball.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Words.
4. Mech. See quot. and cf. TRIP sb.1 8.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., Trippet (Machinery), a projection intended to strike some object at regularly recurrent intervals.
