truckle - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
truckle (plural truckles)
- A small wheel; a caster or pulley.
- A small wheel of cheese.
- Ellipsis of truckle bed.
- ✤ Synonyms: truckle bed, trundle bed, trundle
Verb
truckle (third-person singular simple present truckles, present participle truckling, simple past and past participle truckled)
- To roll or move upon truckles, or casters; to trundle.
- (intransitive) To sleep in a truckle bed.
Verb
truckle (third-person singular simple present truckles, present participle truckling, simple past and past participle truckled)
- (intransitive) To act in a submissive manner; to fawn, submit to a superior. [with to]
- ✤ “Why in the world should you spend your money, worry your family, and turn the house upside down for a parcel of girls who don’t care a sixpence for you? I thought you had too much pride and sense to truckle to any mortal woman just because she wears French boots and rides in a coupe,“said Jo, who, being called from the tragic climax of her novel, was not in the best mood for social enterprises.”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.1
- ✤ There is no doubt […] that truckling to popularity is the worst political vice.2
- ✤ Religion it self is forced to truckle to worldly policy.3
Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈtɹʌkəl/
- Rhymes: -ʌkəl
- Audio (Southern England): 🔊
Etymology 1
From Middle English trokel, trocle, trookyl, from Anglo-Norman trocle, from Medieval Latin trochlea (“a block, sheaf containing one or more pulleys”); or from a diminutive of truck (“wheel”), formed with -le, equivalent to truck + -le.
Etymology 2
From a back formation of truckle bed (a bed on which a pupil slept, because it was rolled on casters into a lower position under the master’s larger bed), from Middle English trookylbed. Compare also trundle bed. Assisted by false association with Middle English ﹡trukelen, truken, trokien, trukien, from Old English trucian (“to fail, diminish”), Low German truggeln (“to flatter, fawn”), see truck.
Printed 2026-09-04.
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