Trucks

How to spell trucks

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce trucks

What does trucks mean?

1. nounLarge motor vehicles designed for carrying goods or heavy loads.
2. verbTransports goods by road vehicle, said of a third party.

Trucks in a sentence

• noun

  A convoy of delivery trucks pulled into the depot at dawn.

• verb

  The firm trucks fresh produce across the country every night.

• noun

  The company bought three new trucks to expand its haulage fleet.

• verb

  She trucks supplies to remote sites whenever the weather allows.

Where does trucks come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This is the plural of 'truck', which most likely traces back to the Latin trochus, meaning 'an iron hoop' used in a children's game, itself borrowed from the Greek trokhos, meaning 'a wheel', and ultimately from the verb trekhein, 'to run'. When the word surfaced in English in the 1600s it referred to a small wooden wheel or roller, especially the disc at the top of a ship's mast through which ropes were run. From that idea of a wheeled device it broadened to mean a low cart for moving heavy loads, and by the 1900s the motorised goods vehicle we know today. The same wheel-and-running sense survives in relatives like 'trochee' and 'trolley'. The spelling is mercifully straightforward: it keeps the hard -ck and simply adds -s, with no silent letters to trap the writer.

How the word is built

• truck (wheel, wheeled vehicle; from Greek trokhos 'wheel')
• -s (plural/third-person marker)