Exceedingly quick and ready.
1830. A feller, with an eye like a hawk and quick as a steel trap for a trade.—Seba Smith (‘Major Downing’), ‘My Thirty Years Out of the Senate,’ p. 49 (1860).
1833. He’d come home again as smart as a steel-trap.—Id., p. 234–5.
1856. [A little girl of eight] with sparkling, intelligent eyes, thin, expressive lips, and as ‘smart as a steel-trap.’—Knick. Mag., xlviii. 311 (Sept.).
1866. A round, rosy-cheeked, blue eyed girl, as neat as a new pin, and as smart as a steel-trap.—Seba Smith, ‘’Way Down East,’ p. 271.
