trippant

English

three bucks trippant

Alternative forms

• tripping

Etymology

From trip +‎ -ant, alteration of tripping, present participle of trip. Compare Scots trippand (“tripping”), present participle of trip (“to skip, go nimbly, trip”).

Adjective

trippant (not comparable)

1. (heraldry) Represented as walking or trotting, usually with one of the forehooves lifted while the remaining three are on the ground.
   • 1828, William Berry, Encyclopaedia Heraldica Or Complete Dictionary of Heraldry:

     [Borne by the late 1737.] Richard Davies, Esq. of Kent, 1833.] Davison, gu. a stag, trippant, or.

   • 1830, Thomas Robson, The British Herald, page 82:

     Crest, a buck roe-bucks, trippant, or, as many quatrefoils gu.

   • 1844, John Burke, Bernard Burke, Encyclopædia of Heraldry, page 349:

     a buck trippant within an orle  […] three bucks trippant […]

Derived terms

• countertrippant
• trippant-counter

References

• “trippant”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

French

Adjective

trippant (feminine trippante, masculine plural trippants, feminine plural trippantes)

1. (slang) trippy