Traipse

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Traipse

Postby Dr. Goodword » Thu Jul 14, 2022 5:47 pm

• traipse •


Pronunciation: trayps • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb, intransitive

Meaning: To tramp, having been annoyed, to gallivant unhappily, to walk with attitude: reluctantly, pompously, or angrily.

Notes: The Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster now accept trapes as an alternate spelling of today's word, so I won't have to remind you not to forget the I. This verb may be used as a noun, referring either to an act of traipsing or, like the thousands of other pejorative terms for socially unacceptable women, to refer to a slovenly woman.

In Play: Traipsing usually implies walking with attitude: "Oh, yes, didn't that 'shy' Anne Y. Ohming traipse right over to Phil Ander's house and tell his poor wife that she saw Phil having lunch with Wanda Round at the Dunham Inn." One of the attitudes associated with this word is flagrance: "Can you believe the way Maud Lynn Dresser is traipsing around town in that new diamond necklace her husband bought her for her birthday?"

Word History: Today's Good Word is an English reduction of Old French trespasser "cross, traverse, transgress", made up of tres- "beyond, over" + passer "to by, pass". Tres- is a French makeover of Latin trans- "across, beyond", which Latin created out of PIE tra-, a variant of tere- "through, over". The PIE word is also the source of English through and thorough, Welsh trwy "through", Irish tri "through", Gujarati (India) dvara "through", and German durch "through". The French verb reflects minor tinkering with Vulgar Latin passare "to step, walk", created from Classical Latin passus "step, pace". Passus is based on PIE pot-s-, a suffixed form of pet-/pot- "wide, spread out", source also of Greek petalon "leaf", English pan, and Spanish paella. (Now a word of thanks to Anna Jung, a prolific contributor of Good Words as fascinating as today's.)
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Slava
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Re: Traipse

Postby Slava » Fri Jul 15, 2022 6:14 am

I'll take a hard pass on trapes, thank you very much. My spell-check doesn't like it, either.

Question for the rest of the Agorans, how doth one 'gallivant unhappily'?
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Re: Traipse

Postby David Myer » Fri Jul 15, 2022 7:08 am

I will take on your challenge, Slava, tough as it is.

One online dictionary suggests that to gallivant is to "go around from one place to another in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment."

So maybe if you pursue pleasure unsuccessfully...? But on balance, I guess that's not really gallivanting, is it?

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Re: Traipse

Postby bnjtokyo » Fri Jul 15, 2022 9:41 am

I can't get more context, but I found this snippet of a novel
. . . I didn't know what my life would be like, all I did was gallivant on the rocky terrain of the Sahyadris. I did not have any friends. The villagers did not allow their children to wander into the community of devdasis ...
The Color of Our Sky by Amita Trasi, 2017
It suggests to me that the narrator is not entirely happy

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Re: Traipse

Postby David Myer » Sun Jul 17, 2022 5:49 am

So there we are: gallivanting, it seems can be an unhappy experience. But going back to Traipse, which it is suggested here is necessarily an unhappy experience, I wonder if that is really the case? I traipsed round the Picasso exhibition at our major Gallery perfectly happily just last week. Certainly I was orderly, and so not boistrously gallivanting, but I ambled and meandered, in fact traipsed, I would have thought.

I note that there is nothing in the Word History that implies unhappiness. Although I do recall my children reluctantly traipsing round museums behind me dragging their heels...

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Re: Traipse

Postby bnjtokyo » Sun Jul 17, 2022 9:26 am

It looks like at least one person out there agrees that children can traipse reluctantly. I found this quote using the ngram viewer:
"We might march, traipse, or tramp—and consider the social implications. Traipse was one of my mother's favorite expressions for the reluctant hiking of her young sons."
From "Granite and Grace: Seeking the heart of Yosemite" by Michael Cohen, University of Nevada Press, 2019

On the other hand, Dr Johnson defines traipse thus
To Traipse. v.a. [A low word, I believe, without any etymology.] To walk in a careless or sluttish manner.

And he cites Alexander Pope's Dunciad (I don't know which version, 1728 perhaps?)

See next two slip-shod Muses traipse along,
In lofty madness meditating song,
With tresses staring from poetic dreams,
And never wash'd, but in Castalia's streams.

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Re: Traipse

Postby David Myer » Tue Jul 19, 2022 7:44 pm

Love the Pope quote, bnj. I will explore it further.

I wonder how to 'compare and contrast' trudge and traipse. Is traipsing dragging your feet and trudging perhaps more purposefully planting them? Trudge, drudge, grudge, dudgeon... All a bit miserable. But surely I have seen 'gaily traipsing' somewhere?

So a quick google search reveals 'Traipsing gaily thro' these here soberlands utterly cleansed." This is somebody's tagline but presumably a quote from somewhere.

And many other book quotations including one in Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente 2009, and one in Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict 1981. Isn't Google a joy (sometimes)?


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