How to Use booby trap in a Sentence
booby trap
noun- Someone had rigged a booby trap that blew up the car when the engine was started.
- We set a booby trap by balancing a bucket of water on top of the door so that it would fall on him when he came in.
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Some say the booby traps of Qin Shi Huang’s tomb are real.
—Jeremy Hillpot, Discover Magazine, 13 Feb. 2023
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And the area remains awash with bodies and booby traps.
—Hollie McKay, Fox News, 16 May 2018
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Dykes had set a booby trap: a snake pit of cables blocking the way into the bunker.
—CBS News, 6 Oct. 2020
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And now he's stepped up his game to a booby trap, changes things for us immensely.
—CBS News, 20 Oct. 2020
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These are all of booby traps that are everywhere for them.
—Jasmine Browley, Essence, 10 Oct. 2023
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Write down the targets, draw up plans and booby trap the roads, lay down [roadside bombs], and spread out snipers and kill with silencers.
—Zachary Halaschak, Washington Examiner, 27 Jan. 2020
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She was killed while on patrol when a Marine walking in front of her tripped a booby trap.
—James B. Nelson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 15 Sep. 2017
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It was thought their digging had triggered a booby trap.
—Dylan Taylor-Lehman, Popular Mechanics, 13 May 2021
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At one point, Granit and the crew smash glass Coca-Cola bottles to build a makeshift booby trap.
—Amos Barshad, New York Times, 12 Oct. 2022
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The booby trap was placed on the sidewalk of a Southwest Austin neighborhood and those injured were young white males.
—CBS News, 20 Oct. 2020
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They were targeted by land mines, booby traps, snipers.
—Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2018
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Stranger said that during the initial search of the property, one of the deputies stepped on a board with nails sticking up from it — which Stranger said had been placed as a booby trap.
—Teri Figueroa, San Diego Union-Tribune, 21 Oct. 2020
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The troops cleared mud-brick compounds and found many homemade explosive booby traps.
—Habib Khan Totakhil, WSJ, 8 June 2018
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Residents are being told to stay away from the city for now, until landmines and booby traps -- found in many of the towns and cities ISIS has fled -- are removed.
—Arwa Damon and Ghazi Balkiz, CNN, 20 Oct. 2017
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His soldiers fought slowly from house to house, impeded by snipers and booby traps.
—The Economist, 17 Oct. 2017
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The gunman in that attack, which killed 12, attempted to booby trap his home before the shooting.
—Christal Hayes, USA TODAY, 28 May 2021
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And some dangers are homegrown—Ukrainians who fled early in the war often left booby traps in their own homes in case the Russians came and tried to loot them.
—Thomas Mutch, Popular Mechanics, 21 Mar. 2023
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Erin Moriarty: Why would anybody set up that booby trap with a .357 in the closet?
—Erin Moriarty, CBS News, 4 Feb. 2018
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Once, Steer came across an explosive charge -- a booby trap left by the enemy to kill American soldiers -- ahead of him in the trees.
—Grant Lancaster, Arkansas Online, 12 Nov. 2022
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At the time, an Israeli commander said that soldiers, fearing booby traps, had not ventured down the shaft.
—Michael Levenson, New York Times, 20 Nov. 2023
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The side roads and fields are inaccessible, as teams sweep for the landmines, bombs and booby traps that ISIS is expected to have left behind.
—Arwa Damon, Ghazi Balkiz and Tamara Qiblawi, CNN, 3 Nov. 2017
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Now DeKalb County has had to close the park after authorities discovered the area was rigged with booby traps.
—The Editorial Board, WSJ, 30 Mar. 2023
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Due to the area being riddled with mines and booby traps, extensive cleanup and digging at the site couldn’t begin until late August last year.
—Hollie McKay, Fox News, 1 May 2018
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There ultimately isn't much to that vault, at least beyond the usual array of temple-of-doom wall puzzles and booby traps.
—Justin Chang, latimes.com, 14 Mar. 2018
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One booby trap was recovered in a building across the street, designed to blow when the electricity was switched back on, but Rhyzenko’s home appeared to be safe based on the expert’s search.
—Phil McCausland, NBC News, 27 Apr. 2022
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Ronald Cyr, age 65, a most distrustful chap, Determined to defend his home, devised a booby trap.
—Washington Post, 30 Dec. 2020
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The blue-eyed Mr. Gantz, who looks like he was chiseled from Ashkenazi granite, seemed to blunder into cultural booby traps.
—David M. Halbfinger, New York Times, 3 Mar. 2020
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The Samur unit has been working for years to develop sensors that can detect underground tunnels, booby traps and explosives.
—Brian Glyn Williams, The Conversation, 8 Nov. 2023
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'booby trap.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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