trundle
verbEtymology From Middle English trondlin, trondelen, a variation of Middle English trendlen, from Old English trendlian. More at trendle, trindle.
7 senses
- 1To wheel or roll (an object on wheels), especially by…
- 2To transport (something or someone) using an object on…
- 3To move heavily (on wheels).
- 4To move (something or someone), often heavily or clumsily.
- 5To move, often heavily or clumsily.
- 6To cause (something) to roll or revolve; to roll…
- 7To roll or revolve; to roll along.
1
To wheel or roll (an object on wheels), especially by pushing, often slowly or heavily.
- Every morning, the vendors trundle their carts out into the market.
- to trundle a bed or a gun carriage
1 more example
- When the bin men come down the back alley to trundle our wheelie bins to their truck, the dog becomes hysterical […]1995, Val McDermid, The Mermaids Singing, New York: HarperPaperbacks, published 1997, page 55:
2
To transport (something or someone) using an object on wheels, especially one that is pushed.
- […] they are attended like the Lords and Princes of the earth, with mighty retinues, and are carryed in coaches with foure or six horses a peece in them, when a wheele barrow such as they trundle white wine vineger about the towne were a great deale fitter for them […]1637, John Bastwick, The Answer of John Bastwick, Doctor of Phisicke, to the Exceptions Made against His Letany […] which is annexed to the Letany it selfe, Leiden, Letany, Part 2:
- 1761, George Colman, The Genius, No. 5, 6 August, 1761, in Prose on Several Occasions, London: T. Cadel, 1787, pp. 57-58, The reading female hires her novels from some country circulating library, which consists of about an hundred volumes, or, is trundled from the next market town in a wheelbarrow;
2 more examples
- […] Peter trundled a load of watermelons up the hill in his wheelbarrow.1918, Willa Cather, My Ántonia, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Book 1, Chapter 5, p. 39:
- The kraal walls are two feet thick and higher than his head; they are made of flat blue-grey stones, every one of them trundled here by donkey-cart.1997, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 11, in Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life, London: Secker & Warburg, page 91:
3
To move heavily (on wheels).
- […] he can glibly run over Non-sense, as an empty Cart trundles down a Hill.1662, John Birkenhead, The Assembly-Man, London: Richard Marriot, page 14:
- Until the main road from Hatfield to Hertford was diverted a few years ago, heavy lorries trundling through the village sometimes knocked chunks off corner buildings, but now the village has regained much of its former tranquillity.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 224, about Hertingfordbury:
2 more examples
- Suddenly from around a bend a wagon trundled toward him.1987, Toni Morrison, Beloved, New York: Vintage, published 2004, page 25:
- My trip ends at Wrexham General. While the '150' trundles the final half-mile down the single line to Wrexham Central, I nip over the footbridge to explore the main part of the station.2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, page 58:
4
To move (something or someone), often heavily or clumsily.
- I’ll clap a pair of horses to your chaise that shall trundle you off in a twinkling,1773, Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, London: F. Newbery, act II, page 45:
- 1928, W. B. Yeats, “Meditations in Time of Civil War,” 6. “The Stare’s Nest by My Window,” in The Tower, London: Macmillan, p. 27, Last night they trundled down the road That dead young soldier in his blood:
5
To move, often heavily or clumsily.
- Betty. They are gone Sir, in great Anger. / Pet[ulant]. Enough, let 'em trundle. Anger helps Complexion, ſaves Paint.1700, [William] Congreve, The Way of the World, a Comedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act I, scene ix, page 13:
- ... the proprietor trundled away to fetch a second beer ...1948, Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms, Part One, 1:
2 more examples
- […] we set off again, the dog trundling apathetic at his master’s heels,1957, D. H. Lawrence, Etruscan Places, New York: Viking, Chapter 3, part 1, p. 64:
- she let the marmalade stay where it was, trundling in blobs down her plump cheeks1977, Diana Wynne Jones, Charmed Life:
6
To cause (something) to roll or revolve; to roll (something) along.
- to trundle a hoop or a ball
- 1565, Andrew Boorde, Merie Tales of the Made Men of Gotam, London: Thomas Colwell, Tale 3, He layde downe hys poake, and tooke the cheeses, and dyd trundle them downe the hyll one after another:
4 more examples
- If thou, my Deere, a winner be At trundling of the Ball, The wager thou shalt have, and me, And my misfortunes all.1648, Robert Herrick, “Stool-ball”, in Hesperides, London: John Williams and Francis Eglesfield, page 280:
- At gaming, perhaps, I may win; With cards I may take the flats in, Or trundle false dice, and they’re nick’d:1784, John O’Keeffe, The Poor Soldier, Dublin, act II, scene 5, page 27:
- […] all our dainty terms for fratricide, Terms which we trundle smoothly o’er our tongues Like mere abstractions,1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Fears in Solitude, London: J. Johnson, page 6:
- 1818, John Keats, letter to Fanny Keats dated 4 July, 1818, in Sidney Colvin (ed.), Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends, London: Macmillan, 1891, p. 122, [I am] so fatigued that when I am asleep you might sew my nose to my great toe and trundle me round the town like a Hoop without waking me.
7
To roll or revolve; to roll along.
- At Chrystes death, whan the Apostles all Theyr mayster dyd leaue, throughe mutabylytie Men were founde lyght, and trundlynge as a ball In them was no fayth, but infydelytye1542, Robert Burdet, “The Fawcon”, in A Dyalogue Defensyve for Women, London: Rycharde Banckes:
- Water is apt to move, being round like Balls, No points to fixe, doth trundle as it falls.1653, Margaret Cavendish, “The Agilenesse of Water”, in Poems, and Fancies, London: J. Martin and J. Allestrye, page 28:
- Derived terms
- trundle along, trundlehead, trundle out, trundler