A trap for large animals.
1611. Some do use to take them with hutches, or dead-falls, set in their haunts.—Markham, ‘Countryman’s Content,’ (1668), i. 78. (N.E.D.)
1829. In the act of getting in, the log or dead-fall fell upon his back, and held him fast.—Mass. Spy, July 8.
1840. From what has been said, I should conclude that an Eastern gentleman, desirous of emigrating Westward, would esteem it necessary to provide himself with traps, snares, and the like; and when he should get there to use what in the western part of N. Carolina they call a dead fall, in order to catch and clear the country of squatters.—Mr. Howard of Indiana, House of Repr., Feb. 12: Cong. Globe, p. 190, App.
1860. A continuance on the part of the Banks to issue specie would … catch us completely under the dead fall of Northern absorptive predominance.—Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 23, p. 1/8.
1909. It is not written in the book of graft that you walk right up to the deadfall and allow yourself to be shoved in.—N.Y. Evening Post, Jan. 11.
