trailer
Americannoun
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a large van or wagon drawn by an automobile, truck, or tractor, used especially in hauling freight by road.
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Also called travel trailer. a vehicle attached to an automobile and used as a mobile home or place of business, usually equipped with furniture, kitchen facilities, bathroom, etc.
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a person or thing that trails.
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a trailing plant.
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a short promotional film composed of clips showing highlights of a movie due for release in the near future.
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blank film at the end of a reel or strip of film, for winding off the film in a motion-picture camera or projector.
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Ceramics. a can with a spout, used in slip trailing.
noun
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a road vehicle, usually two-wheeled, towed by a motor vehicle: used for transporting boats, etc
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the part of an articulated lorry that is drawn by the cab
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a series of short extracts from a film, used to advertise it in a cinema or on television
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a person or thing that trails
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Also called (in Britain and certain other countries): caravan. a large enclosed vehicle capable of being pulled by a car or lorry and equipped to be lived in
Etymology
Origin of trailer
Explanation
A trailer is a wheeled vehicle that can't move on its own — it needs to be pulled by a car, truck, or other vehicle. Some bike-riding parents tow their small children behind them in bicycle trailers. The trailer you might put a boat on, hitching it to your truck, trails behind the vehicle that's pulling it. Another meaning of trailer is a film preview or advertisement that theaters show before a movie. It might seem strange to call it a trailer when it comes first, but the earliest trailers, at the start of the 20th century, came after the movie, trailing it.
Vocabulary lists containing trailer
Because of Winn-Dixie
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Film and Literature
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American Street
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The Chicken Shop Date star, described by Peters as "super focused and creative", directs the trailer for the album and the video for My Regards.
From BBC • May 22, 2026
An exquisitely observed scene depicts a full weekend Suzanna is allowed to spend with her mother in a prison trailer, a simulacrum of domesticity.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 22, 2026
“This is where I live,” Pratt said, standing in front of the trailer.
From Los Angeles Times • May 22, 2026
In March, HBO released its first trailer for the show, which included a peek at the redheaded Weasley family saying goodbye to Ron at Platform 9¾ before he boarded the Hogwarts Express.
From Los Angeles Times • May 19, 2026
We don’t have air-conditioning in our trailer and it gets pretty brutal in there, so I spent a lot of time outside with Annie.
From "The Million Dollar Shot" by Dan Gutman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
