truckle
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈtɹʌkəl/
- Rhymes: -ʌkəl
Audio (UK) (file)
Etymology 1
From Middle English trokel, trocle, trookyl, from Anglo-Norman trocle, from Medieval Latin trochlea (“a block, sheaf containing one or more pulleys”); or from a diminutive of truck (“wheel”), formed with -le, equivalent to truck + -le.
Noun
truckle (plural truckles)
- A small wheel; a caster or pulley.
- A small wheel of cheese.
- A truckle bed.
Alternative forms
- troccle (obsolete)
Derived terms
- truckle bed
Verb
truckle (third-person singular simple present truckles, present participle truckling, simple past and past participle truckled)
- To roll or move upon truckles, or casters; to trundle.
- (intransitive) To sleep in a truckle bed.
Etymology 2
From a back formation of truckle bed (a bed on which a pupil slept, because it was rolled on casters into a lower position under the master's larger bed), from Middle English trookylbed. Compare also trundle bed. Assisted by false association with Middle English *trukelen, truken, trokien, trukien, from Old English trucian (“to fail, diminish”), Low German truggeln (“to flatter, fawn”), see truck.(Can this(+) etymology be sourced?)
Verb
truckle (third-person singular simple present truckles, present participle truckling, simple past and past participle truckled)
- (intransitive) To act in a submissive manner; to fawn, submit to a superior.
- 1869, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women:
- "Why in the world should you spend your money, worry your family, and turn the house upside down for a parcel of girls who don't care a sixpence for you? I thought you had too much pride and sense to truckle to any mortal woman just because she wears French boots and rides in a coupe," said Jo, who, being called from the tragic climax of her novel, was not in the best mood for social enterprises. "I don't truckle, and I hate being patronized as much as you do!" returned Amy indignantly, for the two still jangled when such questions arose.
- 1899, William Graham Sumner, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain”, in War and Other Essays, Yale, published 1911, page 302:
- There is no doubt […] that truckling to popularity is the worst political vice.
- 1687, John Norris, A Collection of Miscellanies, consisting of Poems, Essays, Discourses and Letters
- Religion it self is forced to truckle to worldly policy.
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Derived terms
- truckler
Translations
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References
- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967
Yola
Etymology
From Middle English trokel, from Anglo-Norman trocle, from Medieval Latin trochlea (“a block, sheaf containing one or more pulleys”).
Noun
truckle
- car
References
- Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 73