verb. (old).—To quiz, befool, draw out, GET AT (q.v.): also as subs.
1847. C. BRONTË, Jane Eyre, xvii. I presently perceived she was (what is vernacularly termed) TRAILING Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on her ignorance: her TRAIL might be clever, but it was decidedly not good-natured.
1899. KERNAHAN, Scoundrels & Co., xxi. To see the Ishmaelites ‘TRAIL’ a sufferer from ‘swelled head’ is to undergo inoculation against that fell malady.
TO TRASH A TRAIL, verb. phr. (Western American).—To take to water in order to destroy scent: of human beings as well as animals.
