trapeze: [19] Trapeze and quadruped are ultimately the same word: both mean etymologically ‘four feet’. Trapeze comes via French trapèze and late Latin trapezium (source of English trapezium [16]) from Greek trapézion ‘small table’. This was a diminutive form of trápeza ‘table’, literally ‘four-footed’ thing, a compound noun formed from tetra- ‘four’ and peza ‘foot’ (a relative of English foot).
The Greek mathematician Euclid used trapézion for a ‘table’-shaped geometrical figure, a quadrilateral. The application to the piece of gymnastic equipment, which evolved in French, alludes to the quadrilateral shape formed by the trapeze’s ropes and crossbar and the roof or other support it hangs from. => foot, quadruped
trapeze (n.)
swing with a cross-bar, used for feats of strength and agility, 1861, from French trapèze, from Late Latin trapezium (see trapezium), probably because the crossbar, the ropes and the ceiling formed a trapezium.
The French, to whose powers of invention (so long as you do not insist upon utility) there is no limit, have invented for the world the Trapeze .... ["Chambers's Journal," July 6, 1861]
实用例句
1. A long drum roll introduced the trapeze artists.
长长的一阵紧锣密鼓声中迎来了高空秋千表演者。
来自柯林斯例句
2. By the time he was nine years old, he was already performing as a trapeze artist.
他年仅九岁时，便已经在表演空中飞人的特技。
来自辞典例句
3. He was a great trapeze artist, but he was completely vain.
