trapdoor


Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Financial, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

trap·door

 (trăp′dôr′)
n.
A hinged or sliding door in a floor, roof, or ceiling.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

trapdoor

(ˈtræpˌdɔː)
n
1. a door or flap flush with and covering an opening, esp in a ceiling
2. the opening so covered
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

trap•door

(ˈtræpˈdɔr, -ˈdoʊr)

n.
1. a door flush with the surface of a floor, ceiling, or roof.
2. the opening that it covers.
[1325–75]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
Translations
luukkutakaportti
References in classic literature ?
Then I heard a cry of "Fire!" outside, and the old hostler quietly and quickly came in; he got one horse out, and went to another, but the flames were playing round the trapdoor, and the roaring overhead was dreadful.
In a large dining room stood the table at which Louis XIV and his mistress Madame Maintenon, and after them Louis XV, and Pompadour, had sat at their meals naked and unattended--for the table stood upon a trapdoor, which descended with it to regions below when it was necessary to replenish its dishes.
The trapdoor turned over, shutting down with a snap.
There were no stairs from the upper floor to the garret above, this ascent being made by means of a wooden ladder which De Vac pulled up after him, closing and securing the aperture, through which he climbed with his burden, by means of a heavy trapdoor equipped with thick bars.
Once, when they were passing before an open trapdoor on the stage, Raoul stopped over the dark cavity.
I was hacking at the root of a tree, when I beheld an iron ring fastened to a trapdoor of the same metal.
The gleam of the electric light flashed across the stone floor and rested for a moment upon a trapdoor, which Meekins had already stooped to lift.
They suppose that when wishes are repressed they are repressed into the 'unconscious,' and that this mysterious censor stands at the trapdoor lying between the conscious and the unconscious.
"I do think THE WITCHES CURSE, an Operatic Tragedy is rather a nice thing, but I'd like to try McBETH, if we only had a trapdoor for Banquo.
Instantly the trapdoor at the top flew up, something was screamed to the driver, and the cab flew madly off down Regent Street.
She was led before his grace, and the doctor putting a finger carelessly on the ducal heart, which for convenience sake was reached by a little trapdoor in his diamond shirt, had begun to say mechanically, "Cold, qui--," when he stopped abruptly.
With a sigh of relief, but with unabated caution, he gently slid the trapdoor to one side far enough to permit him to raise his eyes above the level of the roof.