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trap


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).