trap

   1.  n.  A  program  interrupt,  usually  an  interrupt caused by some
   exceptional  situation  in  the  user  program. In most cases, the OS
   performs some action, then returns control to the program.

   2.  vi.  To  cause  a trap. "These instructions trap to the monitor."
   Also  used  transitively  to  indicate  the  cause  of the trap. "The
   monitor traps all input/output instructions."

   This  term  is  associated  with  assembler programming (interrupt or
   exception  is  more common among {HLL} programmers) and appears to be
   fading  into  history  among  programmers  as  the  role of assembler
   continues  to  shrink.  However,  it  is  still important to computer
   architects and systems hackers (see {system}, sense 1), who use it to
   distinguish     deterministically    repeatable    exceptions    from
   timing-dependent ones (such as I/O interrupts).

[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {interrupt}]