truckle
Americannoun
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a small wheel; caster
-
a small barrel-shaped cheese
verb
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(intr) to roll on truckles
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(tr) to push (a piece of furniture) along on truckles
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of truckle
First recorded in 1375–1425 truckle for def. 2; truckle def. 1 was first recorded in 1630–40; truckle def. 3 in 1665–75; late Middle English noun trocle, trokel “sheave, roller,” from Anglo-French, from Latin trochlea; the verb is a special use of obsolete truckle “to sleep on a truckle bed” (because such beds were stored underneath a standard bed); see origin at trochlea
Explanation
A truckle is a trundle, a bed that tucks neatly underneath a higher bed. It's also a verb meaning to figuratively slide beneath, or submit to, the will of a more powerful person. If you're in thrall to a charismatic, famous, or fearsome person, you may find yourself tempted to truckle: in other words, to agree with whatever they say, yield to their opinions, and otherwise make yourself (metaphorically) smaller. The original 16th-century meaning of truckle was "small wheel," like the wheels on the bottom of a trundle — or truckle — bed. The figurative truckle, "to bend obsequiously to another person," emerged in the 1800s.
Vocabulary lists containing truckle
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.
See Examples For:
“A criminal could hide tonnes away and then pass them slowly, truckle by truckle, into supply chains,” says Ben Lambourne of the online retailer Pong Cheese.
From BBC ● Nov. 10, 2024
“It was only where there was this defiance, this refusal to truckle, this distrust of all authority, political or social, that institutions would express human aspirations, not crush them.”
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 7, 2020
We’d got all the right stuff – we had smoked salmon, a stilton in a truckle, and nobody had gone off-piste and innovated.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 19, 2019
Now would the assembly truckle to Parliament’s authority?
From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018
“I don’t truckle, and I hate being patronized as much as you do!” returned Amy indignantly, for the two still jangled when such questions arose.
From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
Dramatists have stumbled and truckled so many times attempting true-life inspirational films and TV movies; Gibson eschewed sentiment to focus on two strong wills locked in battle.
From Time ● Sep. 30, 2010
Broad-faced Brauchitsch truckled to Hitler, became Commander in Chief of the German Army in 1938.
From Time Magazine Archive
In a series of major speeches, he has not truckled to their prejudices, but has candidly explored the duties and limitations of free societies.
From Time Magazine Archive
An unstinting professional, he has never written a shoddy line or truckled to popular fancies or cliquish fads.
From Time Magazine Archive
Their host, an antiquarian architect, had never truckled under to modern civilization and kept his house free of gas and electricity.
From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson
Lesser invests Matt with plenty of naturalistic authenticity, but cannot prevent his character from coming across as a gutless wonder whose unfaltering deference towards his wife seems more truckling than tender.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 19, 2014
Instead, it meant to skewer the tone of TV news, by turns omniscient and truckling, in the production of what the show called "genutainment."
From Time ● Nov. 19, 2010
A charge of "truckling to Mussolini" was hurled by Liberal and Labor news organs, last week, at Sir Austen Chamberlain, His Majesty's lanky, imperturbable Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
From Time Magazine Archive
Cranmer's truckling to the king helped to cause the secession of England from the Church of Rome and to create the Church of England.
From Time Magazine Archive
We had all seen bandits standing at a corner of a wood truckling for copper halfpence, and after their benefactors were gone spitting out injuries and curses.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) by Stevenson, Robert Louis
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.
