have truck with

English

Alternative forms

• have truck and trade with

Etymology

From truck (“dealings”).

Pronunciation

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Verb

have truck with (third-person singular simple present has truck with, present participle having truck with, simple past and past participle had truck with)

1. (idiomatic, chiefly in the negative) To have dealings with; to truck with.

   You shouldn't have any truck with them. They cheat.

   I've had no truck with them for some time.

   • 1890 February, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Strange Story of Jonathan Small”, in The Sign of Four (Standard Library), London: Spencer Blackett […], →OCLC, page 240:

     "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 no truck with it, so you can drive home your knife and welcome."

   • 2000 August 10, The Economist, Central Europe’s sulky conscripts‎^[1]:

     Warsaw Pact governments had little truck with pacifists, but their successors are more understanding.

   • 2007 March 14, Emma Marris, “The Species and the Specious”, in Nature‎^[2], number 446:

     Ant taxonomists have decided that anything that's worth separating should be separated at the species level, and have no truck with subspecies at all. Butterfly taxonomists, however, like the triple-barrelled name approach and dote on subspecies. As a result, the numbers of ant species and butterfly species are not directly comparable.

   • 2020 December 8, David Barnett, "How John Lennon was made into a myth[3]" in BBC Online

     Malik eventually tracks down Lennon, living a simple life – in a hut, with a fishing boat called Imagine – away from the spotlight he never had shone upon him, and dispensing nuggets of homespun wisdom. Which is not a portrayal Sheffield has much truck with.

Usage notes

• Frequently used in the negative: “to have no truck with”.