truck

English has two words spelled truck: the vehicle, first a small wheel, probably from Latin and Greek words for a wheel, and the old verb “to barter”, from Old North French, which also gave the noun “dealings” and “market-garden produce”.^[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

• IPA: /trʌk/^[4]

truck¹ vehicle

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Latin trochus (“iron hoop”),^[5][1][6] from Ancient Greek τροχός (trokhós, “wheel”),^[5][1] from τρέχειν (trékhein, “to run”).^[5][1] Merriam-Webster and the Shorter Oxford take it instead as a shortening of truckle, which once also meant a small wheel or pulley,^[2][3][7] from Latin trochlea “wheel of a pulley”.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small solid wheel or roller, especially one of those on which a ship's gun carriage was mounted: 1611, in Florio's dictionary.^[1][8][5]

Semantic evolution

The sense was extended to a cart for carrying heavy loads in 1774,^[1][5] especially strong, low two- and four-wheeled vehicles,^[5] and then, in American English, to a motor vehicle for heavy loads, by 1901 as motor truck and 1902 alone in Etymonline,^[5] 1916 and 1930 in Barnhart.^[1] Churchill told Congress in 1943 that trucks were the American name for lorries.^[5] The verb, “to carry on a truck”, is from 1809,^[1][5] and of vehicles and persons, “to proceed”, from 1925 and 1938;^[5] the slang “to dance, move in a cool way” is from 1935, from the truckin dance said to have been introduced at the Cotton Club in 1933,^[5] and Robert Crumb's Keep on Truckin cartoons began in 1967.^[7] A trucker was a worker who moved loads on a cart in Dickens (1853), and a truck driver from 1955.^[1]

Timeline

• 1611 – a small wheel.^[1][8]
• 1774 – a heavy cart.^[1][5]
• 1809 – verb, to carry on a truck.^[1][5]
• 1901 – motor truck.^[5]
• 1935 – to dance, move coolly.^[5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A heavy motor vehicle for carrying or pulling loads; a lorry.
2. A two-wheeled barrow for moving heavy objects by hand.
3. A wheeled platform for moving loads in a warehouse or rail yard.
4. (British) An open railway wagon for goods.
5. A frame with wheels under a railway car or the end of a skateboard.

Verb

1. To carry by truck.
2. To drive a truck.
3. (slang) To move or travel in a steady, easy way.

Word family

• trucker
• trucking
• truckload
• truck stop
• truckage

truck² barter

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English trukien, trukken,^[1][6] borrowed from Old Northern French troquer (“to barter, exchange”),^[5][1] and directly from Medieval Latin trocāre “to barter”, a word of unknown origin;^[5][1][9] Merriam-Webster derives it from Vulgar Latin *troccāre, probably imitative.^[2] The noun is from the verb, partly through French troc, troque.^[5][1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

“To exchange, barter”: probably before 1200, in the Ancrene Riwle,^[1] before 1225 in the OED.^[8] It is rare in English before the 16th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The noun, barter, trading by exchange, is from 1533 in Barnhart,^[1] the 1550s in Etymonline,^[5] with an Anglo-French truke from the mid-14th century.^[5] The figurative “dealings, communication”, usually negative, as in to have no truck with, is from before 1625;^[1][8] it has nothing to do with the transport of goods.^[7] In 19th-century American English the notion of barter led to goods for exchange, then stuff in general,^[5] and market-garden produce is an Americanism from 1784,^[1][5] kept in truck farm (1866).^[1][5] The truck system, the payment of wages in goods instead of money, is from 1743.^[8][5]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – verb, to barter.^[1]
• 1533 – noun, barter.^[1]
• a. 1625 – dealings.^[1][8]
• 1743 – the truck system.^[8]
• 1784 – market-garden produce.^[1][5]
• 1866 – truck farm.^[1][5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Dealings or business: will have no truck with them.
2. Vegetables grown for the market.
3. Articles of trade; goods.
4. Worthless goods; rubbish.
5. Barter; exchange.

Verb

1. To exchange; to barter.
2. To have dealings; to traffic.

Word family

• truck farm

Related words

• troke
• truckle
• trochee
• troche

Usage notes

An Old English verb trucian “to fail, be lacking”, of unknown origin, survived only in dialect.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
2. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.