trailer

American  

[trey-ler] / ˈtreɪ lər /

noun

trailers plural

1. a large van or wagon drawn by an automobile, truck, or tractor, used especially in hauling freight by road.

2. 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.

3. a person or thing that trails.

4. a trailing plant.

5. a short promotional film composed of clips showing highlights of a movie due for release in the near future.

6. blank film at the end of a reel or strip of film, for winding off the film in a motion-picture camera or projector.

7. Ceramics. a can with a spout, used in slip trailing.

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trailer British  

/ ˈtreɪlə /

noun

1. a road vehicle, usually two-wheeled, towed by a motor vehicle: used for transporting boats, etc

2. the part of an articulated lorry that is drawn by the cab

3. a series of short extracts from a film, used to advertise it in a cinema or on television

4. a person or thing that trails

5. 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

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• trailers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of trailer

First recorded in 1580–90; trail + -er ¹

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

trailer trailers

“With much love ... here is the trailer you’ve been waiting for,” directors Anthony and Joe Russo wrote Monday in an Instagram post sharing the new footage.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026

Even Folger's trailer park - where she has lived in her three-bedroom, two-bathroom home for 17 years - is not immune.

From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026

Not every death involving ICE is a shooting, either; according to the Miami Herald, a man fleeing immigration agents was accidentally hit and killed by a tractor trailer in St. Augustine, Florida, this morning.

From Slate ● Jul. 14, 2026

When the trailer for the adaptation premiered, Lesa Rubin, 60, and her daughter Katy Tometich, 34, dissected it together.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026

I laid my head on his shoulder, so grateful he was still here with me, grateful even for Cletus, who I knew was somewhere in the trailer, waiting.

From "Missing May" by Cynthia Rylant

Sure, it might be annoying that studios are trying to pass off overly enthusiastic five-star Letterboxd reviews as legitimate film criticism in marketing on posters and in trailers.

From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2026

From what we've seen so far in the two gameplay trailers, the story will follow the pair in a Bonnie and Clyde-esque adventure through the seedy underbelly of America after an "easy score goes wrong".

From BBC ● Jun. 19, 2026

Materials arrive for the day in a succession of 18-wheeler trucks, which are tipped by hydraulic lifts to empty the contents of their trailers onto the 28,000-square-foot tipping room floor.

From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026

Makeup and dressing rooms are being built in, for example, so stars don’t have to get ready in trailers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026

I look out the window and see people rushing back to their trailers.

From "Internment" by Samira Ahmed

Related Words

• mobile home