trunk
/tɹʌŋk/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms trunks trunking trunked
- noun The usually single, more or less upright part of a tree, between the roots and the branches.
- noun The torso; especially, the human torso.
- noun 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.
- noun 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.
- noun 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.
- noun (Canada, US, automotive) The luggage storage compartment of a sedan/saloon-style car.
- noun (automotive) A storage compartment fitted behind the seat of a motorcycle.
- noun (US, telecommunications) A major circuit between telephone switchboards or other switching equipment.
- verb (transitive, obsolete) To lop off; to curtail; to truncate.
- verb (transitive, mining) To extract (ores) from the slimes in which they are contained, by means of a trunk.
- verb (telecommunications) To provide simultaneous network access to multiple clients by sharing a set of circuits, carriers, channels, or frequencies.
- proper noun A surname from German.
Synonyms
bole tree trunk stock proboscis boot dicky topbox topcase torso body luggage compartment automobile trunk
Etymology
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.
Borrowed from German Trunk, also a Jewish Ashkenazi surname.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The stem, or body, of a tree, apart from its limbs and roots; the main stem, without the branches; stock; stalk.
- noun The body of an animal, apart from the head and limbs.
- verb To lop off; to curtail; to truncate; to maim. [Obs.] "Out of the trunked stock." Spenser.
- verb To extract (ores) from the slimes in which they are contained, by means of a trunk. See Trunk, n., 9. Weale.
Etymology [F. tronc, L. truncus, fr. truncus maimed, mutilated; perhaps akin to torquere to twist wrench, and E. torture. Trunk in the sense of proboscis is fr. F. trompe (the same word as trompe a trumpet), but has been confused in English with trunk the stem of a tree (see Trump a trumpet). Cf. Truncate.]
Etymology [Cf. F. tronquer. See Truncate.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “trunk”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details