truck

Meanings

Noun

• A small wheel or roller, specifically the wheel of a gun carriage.
• The ball on top of a flagpole.
• On a wooden mast, a circular disc (or sometimes a rectangle) of wood near or at the top of the mast, usually with holes or sheaves to reeve signal halyards; also a temporary or emergency place for a lookout. "Main" refers to the mainmast, whereas a truck on another mast may be called (on the mizzenmast, for example) "mizzen-truck".
• A semi-tractor ("semi") trailer; a lorry.
• a lorry with a closed or covered carriage
• Any motor vehicle designed for carrying cargo, including delivery vans, pickups, and other motorized vehicles (including passenger autos) fitted with a bed designed to carry goods.
• A garden cart, a two-wheeled wheelbarrow.
• A small wagon or cart, of various designs, pushed or pulled by hand or pulled by an animal, as with those in hotels for moving luggage, or in libraries for transporting books.
• A pantechnicon (removal van).
• A flatbed railway car; a flatcar.
• A pivoting frame, one attached to the bottom of the bed of a railway car at each end, that rests on the axle and which swivels to allow the axle (at each end of which is a solid wheel) to turn with curves in the track; a bogie.
• The part of a skateboard or roller skate that joins the wheels to the deck, consisting of a hanger, baseplate, kingpin, and bushings, and sometimes mounted with a riser in between.
• A platform with wheels or casters.
• Dirt or other messiness.
• Small, humble items; things, often for sale or barter.
• The practice of paying workers in kind, or with tokens only exchangeable at a shop owned by the employer [forbidden in the 19th century by the Truck Acts].
• Garden produce, groceries (see truck garden).
• Social intercourse; dealings, relationships.

Verb

• To drive a truck.
• To convey by truck.
• To travel or live contentedly.
• To persist, to endure.
• To move a camera parallel to the movement of the subject.
• To fight or otherwise physically engage with.
• To run over or through a tackler in American football.
• To fail; run out; run short; be unavailable; diminish; abate.
• To give in; give way; knuckle under; truckle.
• To deceive; cheat; defraud.
• To tread (down); stamp on; trample (down).
• To trade, exchange; barter.
• To engage in commerce; to barter or deal.
• To have dealings or social relationships with; to engage with.

Related

Similar words

• rig, tractor trailer, lorry , hauler

Broader meaning words

• vehicle

Origin

• Perhaps a shortening of truckle, related to Latin trochus from Ancient Greek τροχός.
• From Middle English truken, troken, trukien, from Old English trucian, from Proto-West Germanic *trukōn, from Proto-Indo-European *derew-, *derwu-, from Proto-Indo-European *der-. Cognate with Middle Low German troggelen, Dutch troggelen, German dialectal truggeln.
• From dialectal truck, truk, trokk, probably of North Germanic origin, compare Norwegian dialectal trokka, trakka, Danish trykke ("to press, press down, crush, squeeze"), Swedish trycka. More at thrutch.
• From Middle English trukien, from unrecorded Anglo-Norman and Old French words (attested in Medieval Latin trocare, Spanish trocar), of Unknown origin.