tripping

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of trip.

   He kept tripping over the cables behind the desk.

   The path was so dark she was tripping at every step.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of trip, from the stumble to the switch. A child is tripping over a toy, a defender is tripping an opponent, a power surge keeps tripping the breaker. The word over signals the intransitive stumble. A direct object means someone else is made to fall, or a device is set off. The same form can also mean erring, as in tripping on a point of propriety.

2. 2
   adjectiveslang

   Saying wild or irrational things, or behaving foolishly.

   Anyone who pays that much for a used bike is tripping.

   He started tripping mid-meeting, making no sense at all.

   Similarcrazy, nuts, mad, delusional

   Note

   A verdict passed on someone else's judgment rather than a description of their state. It typically appears in the frame you're tripping or anyone who does that is tripping, said to wave off a claim or a choice as absurd. Like the hallucinogenic sense, it is slang, and it can sound dismissive outside friendly banter.

3. 3
   adjectiveslang

   Experiencing the altered perception caused by a hallucinogenic drug.

   By the second hour at the festival, half the group was tripping.

   He was tripping hard and convinced the walls were breathing.

   Similarhigh

   Oppositesober

   Note

   Drug-culture slang built on trip as a noun for a hallucinogenic episode. It usually follows a form of be, as in she's tripping or they were tripping hard, and hard is its natural intensifier. It shares its spelling with the "acting foolishly" sense, so only context tells the listener whether drugs are involved. That ambiguity makes both senses best kept to casual speech.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The action of stumbling over something, or of causing another person to stumble.

   In hockey, tripping draws a two-minute penalty.

   Repeated tripping near the loose carpet pointed to a hidden hazard.

   Similarstumbling

   Note

   As a count noun, it can name lapses rather than stumbles. The Recreative Review (1821) pairs "slips and trippings of the tongue and pen," using the plural trippings for small errors of speech or writing. Used without a plural, as in sports rulebooks, it names the act of bringing an opponent down.

5. 5
   adjective

   Light and nimble; stepping quickly and gracefully.

   The dancers entered with tripping grace, barely touching the ground.

   He admired her tripping gait as she hurried up the lane.

   Similarnimble, light, sprightly, lively, springy

   Oppositeplodding, lumbering, heavy

   Note

   Unlike the heraldic sense, this adjective can be graded. One step or measure can be more tripping than another, and the comparison is formed with more and most rather than -er and -est. That sets it apart from the heraldic posture, which an animal either has or lacks.

6. 6
   adjective

   Of an animal in heraldry, depicted with the right forefoot raised and the other three on the ground, as if walking.

   The blazon called for a tripping hart on a field of azure.

   Their ancient arms display a tripping buck beneath a silver chief.

   Note

   A heraldic term whose word order follows the rules of blazon: it comes after its noun, as in a buck tripping or three stags tripping proper. William Newton's A Display of Heraldry (1846) gives a buck tripping proper as the arms of Williams. Its bearers are deer such as bucks, stags and harts. The variant trippant means the same thing, and since it names a fixed posture it has no comparative.

   Argent, a buck tripping proper, attired and unguled or.

   Ar. three stags tripping ppr.

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