rat-trap

comparative more rat-trap · superlative most rat-trap

1. That shuts forcibly or holds tight, like a rat trap.

   Everyone says he's got a rat trap mind.

   2000, Lee Marcus, Screw Your Courage, page 60

   1 more example

   But above, perched each upon its own stone, tall, gray, and withered, more like dead and dried specimens than actual living creatures, sat the horrible males, absolutely motionless save for the rolling of their red eyes or an occasional snap of their rat-trap beaks as a dragon-fly went past them.

   1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

2. Of the mouth, resembling a rat trap; large and ugly.

   He smiled, his wide rat-trap mouth splitting to show bad teeth.

   2001, John Harris, Picture Of Defeat, page 75