• IPA: /tɹʌk/, [tɹʌk], [t͡ʃɹʌk]
• (Northern England, Ireland) IPA: /tɹʊk/

Perhaps a shortening of truckle, related to Latin trochus from Ancient Greek τροχός.

truck

1. A small wheel or roller, specifically the wheel of a gun carriage.
   • 1843, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 3, in Wyandotte‎^{[https://web.archive.org/web/20140525073150/http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fmodeng%2Fpublicsearch%2Fmodengpub.o2w&act=surround&offset=768645758&tag=073v2&query=truck&id=eaf073v2]}:

     “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. (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".
   • 1851 November 13, Herman Melville, “[https://web.archive.org/web/20140525073130/http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fmodeng%2Fpublicsearch%2Fmodengpub.o2w&act=surround&offset=470730770&tag=EAF642&query=truck&id=eaf642 Chapter 9.]”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC ↗:

     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. (countable, uncountable, US, Canada, Australia) A heavier motor vehicle designed to carry goods or to pull a semi-trailer designed to carry goods.

   Synonyms: rig, pickup truck, semi-trailer truck, lorry

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

   • 1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 1, in Babbit‎^{[https://web.archive.org/web/20140525073155/http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fmodeng%2Fpublicsearch%2Fmodengpub.o2w&act=text&offset=431826066&textreg=2&query=truck&id=LewBabb]}:

     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. (road transport, Singapore, Malaysia) A lorry with a closed or covered carriage.
6. (UK, rail) A railroad car, chiefly one designed to carry goods

   Synonyms: goods wagon, freight wagon, goods carriage, freight carriage, goods truck, freight truck, freight car

7. Any smaller wagon/cart or vehicle of various designs, pushed or pulled by hand or (obsolete) pulled by an animal, used to move and sometimes lift goods, like those in hotels for moving luggage or in libraries for moving books.

   Hyponyms: hand truck, pallet truck, forklift truck

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 3, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC ↗:

     Goods were therefore conveyed about the town almost exclusively in trucks drawn by dogs.

   • 1905, Upton Sinclair, chapter [S%3Aen%3AThe+Jungle%2FChapter_3 III], in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC ↗:

     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. (US, rail) Abbreviation of railroad truck or wheel truck; 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.

   Synonyms: bogie

9. 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.
10. (theater) A platform with wheels or casters.
11. Dirt or other messiness.
    • 1876, Mark Twain, chapter I, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer‎:

      “Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What is that truck?”

• French: camion
• German: Lastwagen, LKW, (formal) Lastkraftwagen, (informal) Laster, Brummi, (delivery van) Lieferwagen
• Italian: autocarro, camion

  Brazilian: caminhão

  European: camião

• Russian: грузови́к
• Spanish: camión, camioneta small truck, pickup

truck (trucks, present participle trucking; simple past and past participle trucked)

1. (intransitive) To drive a truck.

   My father has been trucking for 20 years.

2. (transitive) To convey by truck.

   Last week, Cletus trucked 100 pounds of lumber up to Dubuque.

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

   Keep on trucking!

5. (intransitive, film production) To move a camera parallel to the movement of the subject.
6. (transitive, slang) To fight or otherwise physically engage with.
   • 1993, Sue Grafton, "J" Is for Judgment:

     Both deputies were big, made of dense flesh and tough experience. . . . I wouldn't have wanted to truck with either one of them.

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

• German: (mit dem Lastwagen) fahren, (im LKW) transportieren

From Middle English truken, troken, trukien, from Old English trucian, from Proto-West Germanic *trokōn, from Proto-Indo-European *derew-, *derwu-, from Proto-Indo-European *der-.

truck (trucks, present participle trucking; simple past and past participle trucked)

1. (intransitive, now chiefly dialectal) To fail; run out; run short; be unavailable; diminish; abate.
2. (intransitive, now chiefly dialectal) To give in; give way; knuckle under; truckle.
3. (intransitive, now chiefly dialectal) To deceive; cheat; defraud.

• atroke
• troke

From dialectal truck, truk, trokk, probably of gmq origin, compare Norwegian - dialectal trokka, trakka ("to stamp, trample, go to and fro"), Danish trykke, Swedish trycka.

truck (trucks, present participle trucking; simple past and past participle trucked)

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

From Middle English trukien, from unrecorded Anglo-Norman - and Old French - words, from Latin trocāre, from Frankish *trokan.

truck (trucks, present participle trucking; simple past and past participle trucked)

1. (transitive) To trade, exchange; barter.
   • 1848, John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: John W[illiam] Parker, […], →OCLC ↗:

     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.

2. (intransitive) To engage in commerce; to barter or deal.
3. (intransitive) To have dealings or social relationships with; to engage with.

truck (plural trucks)

1. (obsolete, often, in the plural) Small, humble items; things, often for sale or barter.
2. (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].
3. (US, often, attributive) Garden produce, groceries (see truck garden).
4. (usually with negative) Social intercourse; dealings, relationships.
   • 1890 February, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Strange Story of Jonathan Small”, in The Sign of Four (Standard Library), London: Spencer Blackett […], →OCLC ↗, page 240 ↗:

     "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."

5. (usually with negative) Relevance, bearing.