Etymology 1

Perhaps a shortening of , related to .

Noun

1. A small wheel or roller, specifically the wheel of a gun-carriage.
   • 1843, James Fenimore Cooper, Wyandotte, Chapter 3

     "Put that cannon up once, and I'll answer for it that no Injin faces it. 'Twill be as good as a dozen sentinels," answered Joel. "As for mountin', I thought of that before I said a syllable about the crittur. There's the new truck-wheels in the court, all ready to hold it, and the carpenters can put the hinder part to the whull, in an hour or two."

2. The ball on top of a flagpole.
3. 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".
   • 1851 Melville, Herman Moby Dick, Chapter 9.

     But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than the kelson is low?

4. A semi-tractor ("semi") trailer; a lorry.

   Mexican open-bed trucks haul most of the fresh produce that comes into the United States from Mexico.

   • 1922, Sinclair Lewis, Babbit, Chapter 1

     A line of fifty trucks from the Zenith Steel and Machinery Company was attacked by strikers-rushing out from the sidewalk, pulling drivers from the seats, smashing carburetors and commutators, while telephone girls cheered from the walk, and small boys heaved bricks.

5. 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.
6. A garden cart, a two-wheeled wheelbarrow.
7. 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.
   • 1906, Upton Sinclair, The Jungle Chapter 3

     From the doors of these rooms went men with loaded trucks, to the platform where freight cars were waiting to be filled; and one went out there and realized with a start that he had come at last to the ground floor of this enormous building.

8. A pantechnicon.
9. A flatbed railway car.
10. 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. The axle on many types of railway car is not attached to the truck and relies on gravity to remain within the truck's brackets (on the truck's base) that hold the axle in place.
    • 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

      Far away he could hear the sharp clinking of the trucks on the railway. No, it was not they that were far away. They were there in their places. But where was he himself?

11. The part of a skateboard that joins the wheels to the deck, consisting of a hanger, baseplate, kingpin, and bushings, and sometimes mounted with a riser in between.
12. (theatre) A platform with wheels or casters.

See also

main-truck, crow's nest gun-carriage

• (semi-tractor) semi, trailer truck, rig, monster truck

Verb

1. To drive a truck.
2. To convey by truck.
3. To travel or live contentedly.

   Keep on trucking!

4. To persist, to endure.

   Keep on trucking!

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

Etymology 2

, from unrecorded and words (attested in mediaeval Latin , present Spanish ), of origin.

Verb

1. To trade, exchange; barter.
2. To engage in commerce; to barter or deal.
3. To have dealings or social relationships with; to engage with.

Noun

1. (often used in plural sense) Small, humble items; things, often for sale or barter.

   1884 There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over with branches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles of watermelons and green corn and such-like truck. — Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Chapter 20.

   1911 It happened in this way, on a day when I was indulging in a particularly greenery-yallery fit of gloom. Norah rushed into my room. I think I was mooning over some old papers, or letters, or ribbons, or some such truck in the charming, knife-turning way that women have when they are blue. — Edna Ferber, Dawn O'Hara, the Girl who Laughed, Chapter 5.

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

   1923 I obtained my first view of a lunar city. It was built around a crater, and the buildings were terraced back from the rim, the terraces being generally devoted to the raising of garden truck and the principal fruit-bearing trees and shrubs. Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Moon Maid, Chapter 10.

3. Social intercourse; dealings, relationships.

   1890 'How can I decide?' said I. 'You have not told me what you want of me. But I tell you now that if it is anything against the safety of the fort I will have no truck with it, so you can drive home your knife and welcome.' — Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four.

Adjective

1. Pertaining to a garden patch or truck garden.

   November 4, 1792 As the home house people (the industrious part of them at least) might want ground for their truck patches, they might, for this purpose, cultivate what would be cleared. But I would have the ground from the cross fence by the Spring, quite round by the Wharf, first grubbed, before the (above mentioned) is attempted. — George Washington, The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources: Volume 32, 1745-1799.

   1903 "Wid dat, Brer Rabbit 'low dat Mr. Man done been had 'im hired fer ter take keer er his truck patch, an' keep out de minks, de mush-rats an' de weasels. — Joel Chandler Harris, "Brother Rabbit's Cradle", New Stories of the Old Plantation, Chapter 11

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 Etymology 1, in the sense "produce raised to be trucked to market.

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