Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a slatternly woman.

1675		C. Cotton Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 274: I had not car’d, / If Pallas here had been preferr’d; / But to bestow it on that Trapes, / It mads me.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Trapes, a dangling Slattern.
1709		‘Phoebe Crackenthorpe’ Female Tatler (1992) (10) 19: He mimick’d and ridicul’d all the quality in the kingdom; this lady was a trapes, t’other a puss.
1715		J. Gay What-d’-ye-call-it I i: From door to door I’d sooner whine and beg [...] Than marry such a trapes.
1727		J. Gay Beggar’s Opera III v: To Mrs. Diana Trapes, the Tally-Woman and she will make a good Hand on’t in Shoes and Slippers, to trick out young Ladies, upon their going into Keeping.
1732		Ladies Delight 28: The Dunghill Trapes, trickt up like virtuous Trull.
1768		E. Gayton Festivous Notes I vii 51: For a man of his expectations to be depressed with such a trapes, was an intollerable circumstance.
c.1780		Correct List of the Sporting Ladies [broadsheet] diana trapes, in Pease-porrage lane [...] will not be on the Course this Year [...] Please to enquire for Miss Tickleback.
1790		W. Perry Only Sure Guide 180: Traipes, an idle nasty woman.
1800s		Mrs Palmer Devonshire Courtship 14: It wan’t vor want o’ a good will, the litter-legg’d trapes hadn’t a’ blowed a coal between you and me [F&H].
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1839		Eve. Mail (London) 20 Nov. 4/4: The simple pair, Jenny Diver and Sukey Tawdry, appeared as [...] Mistress Diana Trapes, Mistress Mary Brazen, Mistress Slammerkin.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1896		G.F. Northall Warwickshire Word-Book 249: Trapes [...] (2) A slattern.

2. a tedious, laborious task.

1862

E.K. Wood Channings 471: It’s such a toil and a trapes up them two pair of stairs [F&H].