trunk
Appearance
See also: Trunk
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From 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.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (UK) IPA(key): /tɹʌŋk/
- (General American) IPA(key): /tɹʌŋk/, [t͡ʃɹʌŋk], [tɹʌŋk]
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -ʌŋk
Noun
[edit]trunk (plural trunks)
- (heading, biological) Part of a body.
- The usually single, more or less upright part of a tree, between the roots and the branches.
- Synonyms: bole, tree trunk
- 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. The trunks of various kinds of animals might be adapted to probing and sniffing, as in the sengis, or be partly prehensile, as in the tapir, or be a versatile prehensile organ for manipulation, feeding, drinking and fighting as in the elephant.
- Synonym: proboscis
- The usually single, more or less upright part of a tree, between the roots and the branches.
- (heading) A container.
- 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.
- Hyponym: footlocker
- 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC, page 01:
- 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.
- c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
- To lie, like pawns, lock'd up in chests and trunks
- (Canada, US, automotive) The luggage storage compartment of a sedan/saloon-style car.
- 2005, “Stay Fly”, in Jordan Houston, Darnell Carlton, Paul Beauregard, Premro Smith, Marlon Goodwin, David Brown, Willie Hutchinson (lyrics), Most Known Unknown[1], performed by Three 6 Mafia (featuring Young Buck, 8 Ball, and MJG), Sony BMG:
- I'm a stunt; ride in the car with some bump in the trunk.
- (automotive) A storage compartment fitted behind the seat of a motorcycle.
- 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.
- (heading) A channel for flow of some kind.
- (US, telecommunications) A 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.
- (archaic) A long tube through which pellets of clay, peas, etc., are driven by the force of the breath. A peashooter
- 1655, James Howell, “To the Lord Viscount Col. from Madrid”, in Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ. Familiar Letters Domestic and Forren. […], 3rd edition, volume (please specify the page), London: […] Humphrey Mos[e]ley, […], →OCLC:
- He shot Sugar Plums at them out of a Trunk.
- (mining) A flume or sluice in which ores are separated from the slimes in which they are contained.
- (software engineering) 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 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.
- (in the plural) Short for swimming trunks.
Derived terms
[edit]- brachiocephalic trunk
- celiac trunk
- costocervical trunk
- elephant's trunk
- elephant trunk
- hand trunk
- jugular trunk
- junk in one's trunk
- junk in the trunk
- nerve trunk
- pulmonary trunk
- steamer trunk
- subscriber trunk dialling
- sympathetic trunk
- the apple does not fall far from the trunk
- thyrocervical trunk
- tree trunk
- trunk breeches
- trunk briefs
- trunk call
- Trunk Cay
- trunkless
- trunklid (decklid)
- trunk-like
- trunklike
- trunk line
- trunk-maker
- trunk novel
- trunk or treat
- trunk piston
- trunk road
- trunk show
- trunk sleeve
- trunky
Translations
[edit]tree trunk
|
large suitcase or chest
|
torso — see torso
extended nasal organ of an elephant
|
luggage storage compartment of a sedan/saloon style car
|
telecommunications line
|
swimming trunks — see swimming trunks
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
Further reading
[edit]- “trunk”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “trunk”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- trunk on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Verb
[edit]trunk (third-person singular simple present trunks, present participle trunking, simple past and past participle trunked)
- (transitive, obsolete) To lop off; to curtail; to truncate.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 10:
- Large streames of bloud out of the truncked stocke / Forth gushed, like fresh water streame from riuen rocke.
- (transitive, mining) To extract (ores) from the slimes in which they are contained, by means of a trunk.
- (telecommunications) To provide simultaneous network access to multiple clients by sharing a set of circuits, carriers, channels, or frequencies.
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *twerḱ-
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English doublets
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ʌŋk
- Rhymes:English/ʌŋk/1 syllable
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- Canadian English
- American English
- en:Automotive
- en:Telecommunications
- English terms with archaic senses
- en:Mining
- en:Software engineering
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- en:Transport
- en:Architecture
- English short forms
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English terms with obsolete senses
- en:Animal body parts
- en:Auto parts
- en:Elephants
- en:Trees
- en:Plant anatomy