I am aware the meaning of "trip"
to lose your balance after knocking your foot against something when you are walking or running
I guess this is called "tripped over a cable"
I see some people say "tripped on a cable". A post explains the difference as
tripped on just says where the trip occurred. You can trip on the step without the step being in any way defective.
Tripped over indicates exactly what caused the trip. The cable was where the tripper didn't expect it to be.
I don't really understand that. It seems that both "tripped over a cable" and "tripped on a cable" indicate the trip occurred at the place where that cable was put.
In case that the cable example turns out be a bad example, here is another case
a post describes the image as
I tripped over this 1 inch stone lift …
Does the following version mean the same thing as the one above?
I tripped on this 1 inch stone lift …
Could someone please give a hint? Thanks in advance.
Google Ngram shows that both expression is used.
Best Answer
I think there is a complication here because both "tripped on" and "tripped over" can have multiple meanings:
"tripped on" can mean either that the mentioned thing was the thing that caused one to trip, or it can just mean that one was "on" (on top of, or at the same location as) the thing when one tripped, so "tripped on a cable" probably means that the cable caused you to trip, but "tripped on the stairs" doesn't necessarily mean that the stairs caused the trip, you might just be saying that's where you were when you tripped.
"tripped over" can mean either that (again) the mentioned thing caused one to trip, or it could just mean that when you tripped you went over something in the process of falling, etc. So, "tripped over a cable" probably means that the cable caused the trip (the same as "on"), but "tripped over the wall" probably doesn't mean that the wall caused the trip, but rather that something else caused you to trip and in the process of tripping, you ended up going "over the wall".
So both "trip on" and "trip over" can mean that the thing caused one to trip, or they might not. Which one is meant is often a bit ambiguous, but usually not that hard to figure out from context and what the thing in question is.