[f. as prec. + -ING2.] That trips, in various senses.
1. Moving quickly and lightly; light-footed; nimble. Also fig.
1567. Drant, Horace, Epist., XIV. E v. Thou hast no trippinge trull to mince it with the now That thou mighst foote it vnto her.
1568. Satir. Poems Reform., xlvi. 56. Thir tripand tyddis may tyne ws aw.
1684. Bunyan, Pilgr., II. Introd. Verses 185. When little Tripping Maidens follow God, And leave old doting Sinners to his Rod.
1708. Prior, Turtle & Sparrow, 37. The tripping Fauns and Fairies came.
1807. Scott, Lett. to Southey, 1 Oct., in Lockhart, Life. A tripping Alexandrine stanza.
1851. D. Jerrold, St. Giles, i. 2. A quick, tripping footstep sounds in the deserted street.
1880. Ld. Acton, Lett. to Gladstone (1904), 6. You will find his conversation, easy and tripping as it is very inferior to his writings.
2. Stumbling, erring, sinning.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 296. The Lord beginneth … with the bridle to checke the mouth of his tripping Church.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Chevaux qui brunchent, stumbling or tripping Iades.
1646. Gataker, Mistake Removed, 31. The tripping toung sometimes tels truth.
1703. Rowe, Fair Penit., Epil. The tripping Dame cou’d find no Favour.
1903. G. Matheson, Repr. Men Bible, Ser. II. 287. Where the tripping are trodden down, where the weak are weeded out by the strong.
3. Her. Of a buck, stag, etc.: Walking, and looking toward the dexter side, with three paws on the ground and one fore-paw raised; the same as passant of other animals. Tripping-counter = COUNTER-TRIPPANT.
1562. Leigh, Armorie, 90 b. An Vnicorne trippyng, Sable.
1610. Guillim, Heraldry, III. xiv. (1611), 131. He beareth Azure, three Buckes tripping.
c. 1828. Berry, Encycl. Her., I. Gloss., Tripping-counter, or counter-trippant, is when two bucks, &c. are borne trippant contraryways, as if passing each other out of the field.
1864. Boutell, Her. Hist. & Pop., x. 62. Stags,… when in easy motion, they are tripping.
1870. Rock, Text. Fabr., I. 40. Two giraffes, with one leg raised—may be better described as tripping.
4. In names of mechanical appliances that trip or are tripped (cf. TRIP v. 14); as tripping-coil, -lever, -relay (Cent. Dict., Suppl., 1909); tripping-valve: see quot.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., Tripping-valve, one moved recurrently by the contact of some other part of the machinery.
Hence Trippingness.
1827. Examiner, 738/1. Too much of trippingness in the walk.
1890. Fanny Murfree, Felicia, xi. The basso could not forgive the soprano for the trippingness of her execution.
