TRUCK

truck, motortruck

(noun) an automotive vehicle suitable for hauling

truck

(verb) convey (goods etc.) by truck; “truck fresh vegetables across the mountains”

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology 1

Noun

truck (countable and uncountable, plural trucks)

A small wheel or roller, specifically the wheel of a gun carriage.

The ball on top of a flagpole.

(nautical) 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".

(countable, uncountable, US, Australia) A semi-tractor ("semi") trailer; (British) a lorry.

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 (obsolete) pulled by an animal, as with those in hotels for moving luggage, or in libraries for transporting books.

A pantechnicon (removal van).

(UK, rail transport) A flatbed railway car; a flatcar.

(US, rail transport) 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.

(theater) A platform with wheels or casters.

Dirt or other messiness.

Synonyms

• (motor vehicle for goods transport): rig, tractor trailer, lorry (UK), hauler

Hypernyms

• (motor vehicle for goods transport): vehicle

Verb

truck (third-person singular simple present trucks, present participle trucking, simple past and past participle trucked)

(intransitive) To drive a truck: Generally a truck driver's slang.

(transitive) To convey by truck.

(intransitive, US, slang) To travel or live contentedly. [1960s]

(intransitive, US, Canada, slang) To persist, to endure. [from 1960s]

(intransitive, film production) To move a camera parallel to the movement of the subject.

(transitive, slang) To fight or otherwise physically engage with.

(transitive, slang) To run over or through a tackler in American football.

Etymology 2

Verb

truck (third-person singular simple present trucks, present participle trucking, simple past and past participle trucked)

(intransitive, now chiefly dialectal) To fail; run out; run short; be unavailable; diminish; abate.

(intransitive, now chiefly dialectal) To give in; give way; knuckle under; truckle.

(intransitive, now chiefly dialectal) To deceive; cheat; defraud.

Etymology 3

Verb

truck (third-person singular simple present trucks, present participle trucking, simple past and past participle trucked)

(transitive, UK dialectal, Scotland) To tread (down); stamp on; trample (down).

Etymology 4

Verb

truck (third-person singular simple present trucks, present participle trucking, simple past and past participle trucked)

(transitive) To trade, exchange; barter.

(intransitive) To engage in commerce; to barter or deal.

(intransitive) To have dealings or social relationships with; to engage with.

Noun

truck (plural trucks)

(obsolete, often, in the plural) Small, humble items; things, often for sale or barter.

(historical) 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].

(US) Garden produce, groceries (see truck garden).

(usually with negative) Social intercourse; dealings, relationships.

Adjective

truck (not comparable)

Pertaining to a garden patch or truck garden.

Usage notes

For this etymology, the word is virtually obsolete. It really only survives as a fossil in the construction “to have no truck with”. In the US, the derived term truck garden is often confused with "produce raised to be trucked (transported) to market".

Source: Wiktionary


Truck, n. Etym: [L. trochus an iron hoop, Gr. Trochee, and cf. Truckle, v. i.]

1. A small wheel, as of a vehicle; specifically (Ord.), a small strong wheel, as of wood or iron, for a gun carriage.

2. A low, wheeled vehicle or barrow for carrying goods, stone, and other heavy articles. Goods were conveyed about the town almost exclusively in trucks drawn by dogs. Macaulay.

3. (Railroad Mach.)

Definition: A swiveling carriage, consisting of a frame with one or more pairs of wheels and the necessary boxes, springs, etc., to carry and guide one end of a locomotive or a car; -- sometimes called bogie in England. Trucks usually have four or six wheels.

4. (Naut.) (a) A small wooden cap at the summit of a flagstaff or a masthead, having holes in it for reeving halyards through. (b) A small piece of wood, usually cylindrical or disk-shaped, used for various purposes.

5. A freight car. [Eng.]

6. A frame on low wheels or rollers; -- used for various purposes, as for a movable support for heavy bodies.

Truck, v. t.

Definition: To transport on a truck or trucks.

Truck, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Trucked; p. pr. & vb. n. trucking.] Etym: [OE. trukken,F. troquer; akin to Sp. & Pg. trocar; of uncertain origin.]

Definition: To exchange; to give in exchange; to barter; as, to truck knives for gold dust. We will begin by supposing the international trade to be in form, what it always is in reality, an actual trucking of one commodity against another. J. S. Mill.

Truck, v. i.

Definition: To exchange commodities; to barter; to trade; to deal. A master of a ship, who deceived them under color of trucking with them. Palfrey. Despotism itself is obliged to truck and huckster. Burke. To truck and higgle for a private good. Emerson.

Truck, n. Etym: [Cf. F. troc.]

1. Exchange of commodities; barter. Hakluyt.

2. Commodities appropriate for barter, or for small trade; small commodities; esp., in the United States, garden vegetables raised for the market. [Colloq.]

3. The practice of paying wages in goods instead of money; -- called also truck system. Garden truck, vegetables raised for market. [Colloq.] [U. S.] -- Truck farming, raising vegetables for market: market gardening. [Colloq. U. S.]

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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