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.
  • Look, this movie is filled with giant culture war booby traps.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 19 May 2024
  • And now he's stepped up his game to a booby trap, changes things for us immensely.
    — CBS News, 20 Oct. 2020
  • For a novice member of the field, the coolest details of the event doubled as booby traps.
    — Gabby Herzig, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2025
  • 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
  • His soldiers fought slowly from house to house, impeded by snipers and booby traps.
    — The Economist, 17 Oct. 2017
  • Specialized teams were called to the scene to defuse booby traps in the building, police said.
    — FOXNews.com, 1 Oct. 2025
  • Wary of booby traps and with evening closing in, the troops did not enter the building until the next day.
    — James MacKenzie, Reuters, 18 Oct. 2024
  • The troops cleared mud-brick compounds and found many homemade explosive booby traps.
    — Habib Khan Totakhil, WSJ, 8 June 2018
  • Jun-ho’s drone picks up on a door on the ground that turns out to be a booby trap that kills one person and injures another.
    — Jennifer Zhan, Vulture, 26 Dec. 2024
  • 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
  • From guns to booby traps, Dutch leads the charge to take down the gnarly, terrifying looking alien.
    — Lauren Brown West-Rosenthal, Parents, 28 Nov. 2024
  • Houses kill people in a myriad of ways because all houses are booby traps.
    — Brenna Ehrlich, Rolling Stone, 18 Apr. 2023
  • Secondly, while a drone will fly over tripwires, pressure plates and other booby traps, the robot dog will set them off.
    — David Hambling, Forbes, 16 Aug. 2024
  • Specialized teams were called to the scene to defuse booby traps in the residential building, city police said.
    — CNN Money, 1 Oct. 2025
  • 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
  • Unfortunately, though, one open window negates all the padlocks, bolts, and booby traps money can buy.
    — Lily Hay Newman, WIRED, 21 Mar. 2019
  • 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
  • The gunman in that attack, which killed 12, attempted to booby trap his home before the shooting.
    — Christal Hayes, USA TODAY, 28 May 2021
  • 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
  • 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
  • Trail cams may be easily spotted and removed – though the risk of booby traps can make this challenging – but they can quickly be replaced.
    — David Hambling, Forbes, 21 Jan. 2025
  • Just days before the attack, a popular sergeant had been blown apart by a booby trap that took another soldier’s arms and legs and blinded a third.
    — Steve Chawkins, Los Angeles Times, 30 July 2024
  • 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
  • Get ready for a night of holiday mischief with everyone's favorite Christmas prankster — and without the booby traps.
    — Kylie Martin, Detroit Free Press, 9 Sep. 2024
  • 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
  • In the desert, the Stranger and Nori have become aware they’re being followed and set about constructing a booby trap and maybe killing their stalker.
    — Keith Phipps, Vulture, 29 Aug. 2024
  • While claims of booby traps and rivers of mercury would likely make anyone think twice about entering the tomb, this is not the main barrier to full excavation.
    — Christopher McFadden, Interesting Engineering, 25 Dec. 2025
  • 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

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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