mousetrap

mouse +‎ trap

• enPR: mous'trăp, IPA^(key): /ˈmaʊsˌtɹæp/

mousetrap (plural mousetraps)

1. Device for capturing or killing mice and other rodents.
2. (computing) A website designed to open another copy of itself when the user tries to close the webpage. Frequently used by advertisers and pornographers.
3. (business studies) With attribute "better", a hypothetical new or improved product used in economic projections.

   But what happens if they build a better mousetrap?

4. (chiefly Britain, uncountable) Ordinary, everyday cheese
5. (New Zealand) A slice of bread or toast topped with cheese and then grilled or microwaved.

mousetrap (third-person singular simple present mousetraps, present participle mousetrapping, simple past and past participle mousetrapped)

1. (figuratively) To trap; to trick or fool (someone) into a bad situation.
   • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford 2004, p. 724:

     He hoped to bring the rebels out of their trenches for a showdown battle somewhere south of the Wilderness, that gloomy expanse of scrub oaks and pines where Lee had mousetrapped Joe Hooker exactly a year earlier.

• autosperm, superatom