Trapdoor

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject. Please help improve the article by providing more context for the reader. (March 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message) You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (March 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 731 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Italian Wikipedia article at [[:it:Botola]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|it|Botola}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. The article's lead section may need to be rewritten. Please help improve the lead and read the lead layout guide. (March 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A trapdoor or hatch 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]

Amtrak conductors standing in the doorways of Amfleet cars with their trapdoors in the closed (above) and open (below) positions

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.

• Trap (disambiguation)
• Angstloch
• Trapdoor function
• Patio

Media related to Trapdoors at Wikimedia Commons