trunk
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See also: Trunk
English[edit]
Tapir extending its short trunk to sniff
Trunk of a species of sengi, also known as elephant shrew
A steamer trunk typical of the early twentieth century
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English tronke, trunke, borrowed 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.
- Synonym: tree trunk
- The 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 5661828, 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, 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 606515358, [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, Jordan Houston, Darnell Carlton, Paul Beauregard, Premro Smith, Marlon Goodwin, David Brown, and Willie Hutchinson (lyrics), “Stay Fly”, in Most Known Unknown[1], Sony BMG, performed by Three 6 Mafia (featuring Young Buck, 8 Ball, and MJG):
- 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 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. […], volume (please specify the page), 3rd edition, London: […] Humphrey Mos[e]ley, […], OCLC 84295516:
- 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]
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, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- trunk in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
trunk on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
trunk (luggage) 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 960102938, 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-
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