trampoline

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A gymnastic and recreational device consisting of a piece of taut, strong fabric or rubber stretched over a (usually steel) frame using many coiled springs as anchors.

   “No man was ever known to poſſeſs ſuch wonderful activity as Mr. Ireland, the flying Phœnomenon, at the Royal Circus; he poſitively leaps over a large tilted waggon and four horſes, and performs a number of other feats equally aſtoniſhing; he is a young man of about 23 years of age, 6 feet and an inch high, and does not make uſe of a ſpring board or trampoline.”

   “Though the name of the Four Cleos may not be familiar, their pranks are. They perform on that apparatus resembling a spring mattress, which has been dubbed the “trampoline,” owing to some confusion with the Anglicised form of tremplin (springboard).”

2. (uncountable)A competitive sport in which athletes are judged on routines of tricks performed on a trampoline.
3. (countable, uncountable)Any of a variety of looping or jumping instructions in specific programming languages.
4. (countable, uncountable)Any of a variety of indirection techniques in specific programming languages.

verb

1. (intransitive)To jump (as if) on a trampoline.

   “My heart trampolined into my throat as I watched Lonnie's grip tighten on the stock of his own shotgun […]”

   “It would be helpful if data collected on sporting-related activities more clearly identified if the injuries occurred in organized sport or recreational activity. For example, children trampolining unsupervised in the garden may be at a higher risk than those in a supervised class but the relative degrees of risk are not known.”

2. (transitive)To rewrite (computer code) to use trampoline instructions.

   “trampolined code”