/tɹʌŋk/, /tɹʌŋk/, [t͡ʃɹʌŋk]
OriginFrom Middle English tronke, trunke, from Old French tronc (“alms box, tree trunk, headless body”), from Latin truncus (“a stock, lopped tree trunk”), from truncus (“cut off, maimed, mutilated”). For the verb, compare French tronquer, and see truncate. Doublet of truncus and tronk.
- The usually single, more or less upright part of a tree, between the roots and the branches.
- The torso; especially, the human torso.
- The conspicuously extended, mobile, nose-like organ of an animal such as a sengi, a tapir or especially an elephant.
- A large suitcase, chest, or similar receptacle for carrying or storing personal possessions, usually with a hinged, often domed lid, and handles at each end, so that generally it takes two persons to carry a full trunk.
“There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy. Mail bags, so I understand, are being put on board. Stewards, carrying cabin trunks, swarm in the corridors”
- A box or chest usually covered with leather, metal, or cloth, or sometimes made of leather, hide, or metal, for holding or transporting clothes or other goods.
“To lie, like pawns, lock'd up in chests and trunks”
- Canada, USThe luggage storage compartment of a sedan/saloon-style car.
“I'm a stunt; ride in the car with some bump in the trunk.”
- A storage compartment fitted behind the seat of a motorcycle.
- USA major circuit between telephone switchboards or other switching equipment.
- A chute or conduit, or a watertight shaft connecting two or more decks.
- A long, large box, pipe, or conductor, made of plank or metal plates, for various uses, as for conveying air to a mine or to a furnace, water to a mill, grain to an elevator, etc.
- archaicA long tube through which pellets of clay, peas, etc., are driven by the force of the breath. A peashooter
“He shot Sugar Plums at them out of a Trunk.”
- A flume or sluice in which ores are separated from the slimes in which they are contained.
- In software projects under source control: the most current source tree, from which the latest unstable builds (so-called "trunk builds") are compiled.
- The main line or body of anything.
“the trunk of a vein or of an artery, as distinct from the branches”
- A main line in a river, canal, railroad, or highway system.
- The part of a pilaster between the base and capital, corresponding to the shaft of a column.
- A large pipe forming the piston rod of a steam engine, of sufficient diameter to allow one end of the connecting rod to be attached to the crank, and the other end to pass within the pipe directly to the piston, thus making the engine more compact.
- abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, in-pluralEllipsis of swimming trunks.
- obsolete, transitiveTo lop off; to curtail; to truncate.
“Large streames of bloud out of the truncked stocke / Forth gushed, like fresh water streame from riuen rocke.”
- transitiveTo extract (ores) from the slimes in which they are contained, by means of a trunk.
- To provide simultaneous network access to multiple clients by sharing a set of circuits, carriers, channels, or frequencies.
Formstrunks(plural) · trunks(present, singular, third-person) · trunking(participle, present) · trunked(participle, past) · trunked(past) · Trunks(plural)