1843, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 3, inWyandotte[1]:
“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 newtruck-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.”
(nautical) On a woodenmast, a circular disc (or sometimes a rectangle) of wood near or at the top of the mast, usually with holes orsheaves toreeve signalhalyards; also a temporary or emergency place for alookout. "Main" refers to themainmast, whereas atruck on another mast may be called (on the mizzenmast, for example) "mizzen-truck".
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?
A line of fiftytrucks 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.
2009, James Beach,Peterbilt: Long-Haul Legend[3], page48:
That's why drivingtruck became more than a job for many in the industry. Drivingtruck was a lifestyle.
Any smallerwagon orcart orvehicle 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.
From the doors of these rooms went men with loadedtrucks, 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.
(US,rail transport)Abbreviation ofrailroad truck orwheel truck; apivotingframe, one attached to the bottom of the bed of arailway car at each end, that rests on theaxle and which swivels to allow the axle (at each end of which is a solid wheel) to turn with curves in the track.
The part of askateboard orroller skate that joins the wheels to the deck, consisting of a hanger, baseplate, kingpin, and bushings, and sometimes mounted with a riser in between.
1940, Sam Price, “June Teenth Jamboree”, performed byLouis Jordan:
I want to tell you a story from 'way back: /Truck on down and gig me, jack / In eighteen hundred and sixty-five / A hep cat started some jive / He said, "Come on, gates, and jump with me / At the Juneteenth Jamboree."
1974 October,Skiing, volume27, number 2, page194:
I brought them around again, hard, and some fluff hit me in the face, cool and wet. . .and I laughed andtrucked on down, a mad. fiddler dancing to my own music, happy and alone in my private white world.
2009 May 20, Maggie Koerth-Baker, “Ten important kisses in history”, inMental Floss, CNN:
Instead, when relatives heard that the right ship had docked, theytrucked over to Ellis Island and waited desperately by the Kissing Post.
2022 August 12, Lee Valentine Smith, “Athens band still Squallin' after all these years”, inAtlanta Journal-Constitution:
In November 1978, Hay and Starratttrucked on down toward the Classic City in a VW Van (of course), following the Grateful Dead's tour[…]
1988, Krista Brown,Prepared Statement, to the United States House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, regarding 'Eating Disorders: The Impact on Children and Families', July 31, 1987, page22:
It has been five months since I left Mt. Diablo , and I'm stilltrucking along gaining slowly and I'm just a few pounds from my goal healthy weight. I'm the happiest I've been in my life because through my experiences with anorexia I[…]
2018 September 4, Brittany Terwilliger,The Insatiables, Amberjack Publishing,→ISBN:
“What's ol' Harrison up to these days, Larry?” Grandpa asked. “Oh, he's stilltrucking along,” Uncle Larry replied.
(intransitive, film production) To move a camera parallel to the movement of the subject.
(transitive,slang) To fight or otherwise physically engage with.
1884, Mark Twain, chapter 20, inThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn[5]:
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-liketruck.
1911, Edna Ferber, chapter 5, inDawn O'Hara, the Girl who Laughed[6]:
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 suchtruck in the charming, knife-turning way that women have when they are blue.
(historical) The practice of paying workersin kind, or withtokens only exchangeable at a shop owned by the employer [forbidden in the 19th century by theTruck Acts].
1792 November 4, George Washington,(Please provide the book title or journal name)[7], quoted inThe writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources: Volume 32, 1745-1799.:
As the home house people (the industrious part of them at least) might want ground for theirtruck 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.
1903,Joel Chandler Harris, chapter 11, in"Brother Rabbit's Cradle", New Stories of the Old Plantation[8]:
"Wid dat, Brer Rabbit 'low dat Mr. Man done been had 'im hired fer ter take keer er histruck patch, an' keep out de minks, de mush-rats an' de weasels.
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 gardentruck and the principal fruit-bearing trees and shrubs.
"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 notruck with it, so you can drive home your knife and welcome."
1983 December 17, Kenneth Hale-Wehmann, “Coming Out on Record: A Triumph in Gay Music”, inGay Community News, volume11, number22, page15:
Many people involved in classical music today, themselves gay, see no reason why their sexuality should have anytruck in their music.
2001 January 19, Hank Stuever, “A Fantasy as Big As All Texas”, inWashington Post:
For this reason, Washington is a wonderful and proven humbler of the Texan conceit: Washington isn't a state, and yet it is metaphorically bigger than Texas. It's where Texas learns that not everyone is in love with Texas. (Where yer from orig'nally has notruck here.)
For this etymology, the word is virtually obsolete. It really only survives as a fossil in the constructionto have no truck with. In the US, the derived termtruck garden is often confused with "produce raised to be trucked (transported) to market".
