Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. one’s personal effects.

1826		W.N. Glascock Naval Sketchbk I 8: Got your traps in? - chest and bedding?
1827		P. Cunningham New South Wales II 238: The culprit stood quaking in the dock, surrounded by the traps of office.
1829		‘The Stage-Coachman’s Lament’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 201: I might have in the railway a place, / To look arter the luggage and traps.
1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 152: The scoundrels who retook the prize stole all my traps and I have nothing but this old jacket.
1840		T. Haliburton Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) 82: I shall want a new out-fit when I return, an entire new kit, a complete set of traps.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 30 Dec. 3/4: Mike [...] bunded up his traps and treated himself and his man to a glass of Swankey.
1848		Thackeray Vanity Fair I 233: Where’s her traps?
1857		C. Kingsley Two Years Ago II 85: On the first hint of disease, pack up your traps and your good lady, and go and live in the watch-house across the river.
1864		W.H. Thomes Gold Hunter’s Adventures 19: If you want your traps taken to the mines at a reasonable rate, I’ll do it for you, as I start to-morrow with a load of goods for Ballarat.
1873		W.H. Thomes Slaver’s Adventures 18: I agreed to have my traps on board before sundown, then received a month’s advance wages in gold.
1879		H. Hartigan Stray Leaves (2nd ser.) 48: Darby brought his traps to barracks.
1889		J.K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat 189: We took our traps into the Stag and laid them down in the hall.
1894		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 18 Oct. 4/3: I’d jest make the years take close order / ’And my traps in — an’ bloomin’ well jao.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 14 Apr. 3/5: The Vice took to sending her traps next door also. Good the thing for the neighbours; they got a run of all the duds.
1898		A.J. Boyd Shellback 302: We got our traps together, and started for Glasgow.
1908		H. Lawson ‘Their Mate’s Honour’ in Roderick (1972) 760: She’s gone — taken her traps.
1912		A. Brazil Fourth Form Friendship 10: ‘The table looks like an art repository! [...] Where are you going with all those traps?’.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 237: You can’t get out too quick if you wanta stay healthy — you an’ your traps with you.
1920		B. Cronin Timber Wolves 33: Wanta leave your traps in the office?
1936		‘Banjo’ Paterson Shearer’s Colt 22: What about packing up your traps and coming along?
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 303: I’ll send a bloke over for him and tell him to pack his traps.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 306: Tom and I packed our traps.
1963		A.S. Fleischman Venetian Blonde (2006) 154: I cleaned my razor [...] and slipped it in my jacket pocket. I had learned to carry my traps with me.

2. in ext. use.

1922

Joyce Ulysses 102: Get up! Last day! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and lights and the rest of his traps.

3. (UK Und.) clothes.

c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 22 86/2: ‘Now, Miss Lawson [...] off with your traps’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 71/1: Just go an’ put on thau traps, and I’ll tak thee t’ plaice whe-ir thau’ll fynd more’n thau can cram intu thee.

4. (Aus.) a pack.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 1260: from late 1850s.

5. tools, equipment.

1883

‘Mark Twain’ Life on the Mississippi (1914) 394: You can take a defunct [...] and get your embamming traps around you and go to work.

6. (gay) men’s underwear.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 203: man’s underwear [...] traps.