Sport & ContestGreek → English
Trapeze
/trəˈpiːz/noun
A short horizontal bar hung from two ropes, used by circus acrobats.
The Greek roots
τράπεζα
trápeza
table
Literally: “little table”
Follow a root:τράπεζα2 words
The story of the word
τράπεζα is a squeezed 'four-footed', from τετρα- and πέζα, foot, and geometers borrowed the diminutive τραπέζιον for a four-sided figure with unequal sides. A trapeze bar, its two ropes and the beam above make exactly that shape, which is how the apparatus got its name in French and reached English in 1861. The same τράπεζα is the bank: money changers worked at tables, and a Greek bank today is still a τράπεζα.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1861
Same family
trapeziumtrapezoidtrapezius
In a sentence
She learned trapeze at thirty-four and describes it as the first real fear she chose.