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The word truck is used in various different ways in different varieties of English. Here are some meanings:
- A truck or motor truck is a motor vehicle for transporting goods. In British English these are also known as Heavy Goods Vehicles or lorries, although the US English meaning of the word is becoming more common alongside lorry. (In US English a lorry is an open railroad car with a tipping trough, often found in mines.)
- A railroad truck is in US English a movable platform on pairs of wheels (usually two pairs) which supports one end of a railroad car; it is also called a bogie.
- A railway truck in British English is what speakers of US English call a wagon; it is an open freight carrier pulled by locomotives.
- A hand truck is in US English a small handcart. It consists of a metal plate attached to metal tubing and two large wheels. The metal tubing is bent to form a long handle, so as to provide good mechanical advantage. The metal plate is slipped under large heavy objects, and the truck and object are tilted backward until the weight is balanced over the large wheels, making otherwise bulky and heavy objects easy to move.
- A library truck is a set of bookshelves on wheels used to move books around in a library.
- In nautical use, a masthead truck is a wooden cap at the top of a masthead, with holes in it through which halyards are passed.
- To truck is also a (now little used) verb meaning to barter or negotiate exchange; it survives in such expressions as "truck farming" and to have no truck with someone.
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