[f. TRIP v. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the verb TRIP in transitive senses.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Traspie, tripping, supplantatio.
1606. Breton (title), No Whippinge, nor Trippinge: but a kinde friendly Snippinge.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1899), I. 163. The mysteries of bruising, of wrestling, and of tripping.
1862. Catal. Internal. Exhib., II. XII. 26. Martin’s patent anchor … easy tripping and fishing, great lightness.
1880. Times, 12 Nov., 4/4. It was only lately that Rugby school abandoned the ‘hacking’ and ‘tripping’ which made football dreaded by anxious mothers.
2. The action of the verb TRIP in intransitive senses. Also tripping up; in quot. 1857 spec. the curvature of a boat’s keel.
1594. Nashe, Terrors Night, Wks. (Grosart), III. 273. Their daintie feete in their tender birdlike trippings, enameld (as it were) the dustie ground.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 1072. Answeres and oracles as touching … the tripping and stumbling of the foot.
1693. Apol. Clergy Scot., 14. [They] are very glad when they can discover the trippings of their Adversaries.
1733. S. Knight, in Bibl. Topogr. Brit. (1790), III. 167. It is very easy to discover his trippings.
1828. Carlyle, Misc., Goethe’s Helena (1857), I. 145. Fine warblings and trippings on the light fantastic toe.
1840. Hood, Up Rhine, 36. Tripping up the Rhine, instead of taking my place at Woodlands.
1850. Denison, Clock & Watch-m., 77. The hook at the end of the slope will not catch the tooth as it ought to do, and two or three teeth will slip past at once: this is called tripping.
1857. Colquhoun, Comp. Oarsman’s Guide, 31. Shear is the rising of the gunwale of a boat towards head and stern; gamber is the same on the keel; otherwise called tripping up.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 371/1. This error called ‘tripping’ is also produced if there is much space between the detent and the wheel.
1894. Forum (N.Y.), Oct., 158. Slips, hesitations, and tripping in speech, which, once made, could never be recalled.
3. attrib. and Comb., as tripping-block; tripping-line (Naut.), a light line for tilting the yards (see TRIP v. 12); also, a line for manipulating a drogue; tripping string, a line set by burglars to trip possible pursuers.
1620. Shelton, Quix., II. iv. 26. What doe I know, whether … the Deuill hath set any tripping-blocke before me, where I may stumble and fall?
1841. R. H. Dana, Seaman’s Man., Tripping line, a line used for tripping a topgallant or royal yard in sending it down.
1882. Nares, Seamanship (ed. 6), 260. Drogues … are towed … mouth foremost by a stout rope, a small line termed a tripping-line, being fastened to the apex.
1891. Daily News, 31 Dec., 4/7. The doors … having first been securely fastened … and tripping strings having been stretched across the pathways and lawn.
