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A trapdoor is a sliding or hinged door that is flush with the surface of a floor, ceiling, or roof. [1] It is traditionally small in size. [2] It was invented to facilitate the hoisting of grain up through mills, however, its list of uses has grown over time. [3] The trapdoor has played a pivotal function in the operation of the gallows, cargo ships, trains, [4] booby traps, [5] and more recently theatre and films. [6] [7]
Originally, trapdoors were sack traps in mills, and allowed the sacks to pass up through the mill while naturally falling back to a closed position. [3]
Many buildings with flat roofs have hatches that provide access to the roof. On ships, hatches—usually not flush, and never called trapdoors—provide access to the deck. Cargo ships, including bulk carriers, have large hatches for access to the holds.
Most 19th- and early 20th-century gallows featured a trapdoor, usually with two flaps. The condemned was placed at the join. The edge of a trapdoor farthest from the hinge accelerates faster than gravity, so that the condemned does not hit the flaps but falls freely.
In 1784, the reusable economy coffin was mandated by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. The coffins had a trapdoor in their base. The coffin would be lowered into the grave and a lever operated that opened the trapdoor, allowing the body to fall to the bottom of the grave. [8] [9]
The term trapdoor also refers to a plate in the entry vestibule of a passenger railcar that permits access to high-level platforms when lying flat against the floor of the car, and which can be flipped open to expose steps for accessing ground-level platforms. Many American commuter railroads which operate the Comet railcars made by Bombardier have trapdoors to accommodate passengers boarding and alighting on both high-level and ground-level platforms. Amtrak's Viewliner, Amfleet, and Horizon railcar fleets all have trapdoors.
Trapdoor spiders hide in an underground nest they line with their silk, and then conceal it with a hinged silk lid, the trapdoor. [10]
In theatrical use, "star traps" allowed explosively fast appearances on stage, such as jinn appearing in a puff of smoke. [6]
Trapdoors are occasionally used as hidden doors in fiction, as entrances to secret passageways, dungeons, or to secret tunnels. They also appear as literal traps into which a hapless pedestrian may fall if they happen to step on one. Other types of doors or other objects are also sometimes used as hidden doors.
A trapdoor figures prominently in a late scene of the 1963 film Charade .
A door is a hinged or otherwise movable barrier that allows ingress (entry) into and egress (exit) from an enclosure. The created opening in the wall is a doorway or portal. A door's essential and primary purpose is to provide security by controlling access to the doorway (portal). Conventionally, it is a panel that fits into the doorway of a building, room, or vehicle. Doors are generally made of a material suited to the door's task. They are commonly attached by hinges, but can move by other means, such as slides or counterbalancing.
A station wagon or estate car is an automotive body-style variant of a sedan with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door, instead of a trunk/boot lid. The body style transforms a standard three-box design into a two-box design—to include an A, B, and C-pillar, as well as a D-pillar. Station wagons can flexibly reconfigure their interior volume via fold-down rear seats to prioritize either passenger or cargo volume.
A hatchback is a car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to the main interior of the car as a cargo area rather than just to a separated trunk. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second-row seating, where the interior can be reconfigured to prioritize passenger or cargo volume.
A coupe or coupé is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors.
A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably derives more from the Renaissance period. An oubliette or bottle dungeon is a basement room which is accessible only from a hatch or hole in a high ceiling.
There are many types of car body styles. They vary depending on intended use, market position, location, and the era they were made.
A liftback is a variation of a hatchback car body style, with a more gently sloping roofline, roughly between 45 and 10 degrees, whereas traditional or archetypal hatchback designs tend to use a 45 degree to near vertical slope on the top-hinged tailgate.
Hatch or The Hatch may refer to:
The trunk or boot of a car is the vehicle's main storage or cargo compartment, often a hatch at the rear of the vehicle. It can also be called a tailgate.
In general architecture a lucarne is a dormer window. The term is borrowed from French: lucarne, which refers to a dormer window, usually one set into the middle of a roof although it can also apply to a façade lucarne, where the gable of the lucarne is aligned with the face of the wall. This general meaning is also preserved in British use, particularly for small windows into unoccupied attic or spire spaces. Nikolaus Pevsner described it as "a small gabled opening in a roof or a spire".
A ship's hold or cargo hold is a space for carrying cargo in the ship's compartment.
A pet door or pet flap is a small opening to allow pets to enter and exit a building on their own without needing a human to open the door. Originally simple holes, the modern form is a hinged and often spring-loaded panel or flexible flap, and some are electronically controlled. They offer a degree of protection against wind, rain, and larger-bodied intruders entering the dwelling. Similar hatches can let dogs through fences at stiles. A related concept is the pet gate, which is easy for humans to open but acts as a secure pet barrier.
The Mazda Kabura is a concept car shown by the Japanese manufacturer Mazda in 2006.
A box truck—also known as a box van, cube van, bob truck or cube truck—is a chassis cab truck with an enclosed cuboid-shaped cargo area. On most box trucks, the cabin is separate to the cargo area; however some box trucks have a door between the cabin and the cargo area, box trucks tend to be larger than cargo vans and smaller than tractor-trailers with movable trailers.
A hopper barge is a type of barge commonly designed to transport commodities like coal, steel, rocks, sand, soil and waste. 'Hopper barge' can also refer to a barge that dumps cargo at sea. These are now commonly called 'split hopper barge', because they split along the length of the hull. Split hopper barges can be non-propelled or self-propelled.
A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. The combination of a semi-trailer and a tractor truck is called a semi-trailer truck.
A roof rack is a set of bars secured to the roof of an automobile. It is used to carry bulky items such as luggage, bicycles, canoes, kayaks, skis, or various carriers and containers.
Ambush predators or sit-and-wait predators are carnivorous animals that capture their prey via stealth, luring or by strategies utilizing an element of surprise. Unlike pursuit predators, who chase to capture prey using sheer speed or endurance, ambush predators avoid fatigue by staying in concealment, waiting patiently for the prey to get near, before launching a sudden overwhelming attack that quickly incapacitates and captures the prey.
The Comet V railcar is the fifth generation of the Comet railcar series. Produced by the manufacturer Alstom, the Comet V is a rather different car compared to previous models in the series. The Comet V has been in use by New York metropolitan area commuter rail operators New Jersey Transit and Metro-North since April 2002.
Stage machinery, also known as stage mechanics, comprises the mechanical devices used to create special effects in theatrical productions, including scene changes, lowering actors through the stage floor (traps) and enabling actors to 'fly' over the stage.
A set of triangular sprung flaps in the stage floor through which an actor can be propelled from a lift below stage.
Media related to Trapdoors at Wikimedia Commons