Also 6–7 trucke, 8–9 Sc. troke, trock. [a. F. troque, † troq, troc (16th c.), AF. truke (1364), f. troquer: see TRUCK v.1]
1. The action or practice of trucking; trading by exchange of commodities; barter. Often in truck (for, † of), by truck for.
[1364. Vintner’s Co. Charter, in Pat. Roll 38 Edw. III., m. 44 (P.R.O.). Si mettent pris sur les vins par Truke ou par eschaunges.]
1553. in Hakluyt, Voy. (1598), I. 228. No commutation or trucke to be made by any of the petie marchants, without the assent abouesaid.
1567. Hawkins, Lett. to Eliz., 16 Sept. (St. Pap. Dom. XLIV. 7, P.R.O). To … sell them [negroes] in the West Indyes in trvcke of golde peirels and Esmeraldes.
1625. Purchas, Pilgrims, X. i. 1674. The Moores gave them in trucke for them againe black Moores.
1667. in Magens, Insurances (1755), II. 437. If … any … shall buy, or get to themselves by Truck, or any other way, such Ship or Goods.
1747. Gentl. Mag., April, 173/2. Their trade is managed by truck, or bartering one commodity for another.
1861. Sat. Rev., 14 Dec., 609. The mind has organs and functions … ranging beyond the things of avoirdupois and truck.
b. transf. and fig.
1741. trans. D’Argens’ Chinese Lett., xxxix. 300. There’s a Place at Moscow for the Truck and Barter of Images, and the Money given is in Proportion to the Size of the Figure.
1784. Cowper, Task, II. 741. Precedence went in truck, And he was competent whose purse was so.
1796. Mrs. M. Robinson, Angelina, II. 128. My girl has money, my Lord has a title:—’tis a sort of truck, Sir Clifford.
c. with a and pl. (a) A traffic, trade. (b) An act of trading; a bargain or deal.
1638. Diary Citizen Exeter (ed. Brushfield, 1901), 16. For 30 yards Canvas … for wch I set nothing bec[ause] taken in a truck.
1642. Tasman, Jrnl., in Acc. Sev. Late Voy., I. (1691), 134. They indeavoured to begin a Truck or Merchandize with the yacht.
1678. R. L’Estrange, Seneca’s Mor. (1702), 47. This for That, is rather a Truck than a Benefit.
1749. Chesterf., Lett., 14 Nov. Utility … established a truck of the little agréments and pleasures of life.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 417/1. There’s Paddy in the truck too; he makes a good thing.
2. The payment of wages otherwise than in money; the system or practice of such payment, the truck system (see 5); in quots. 1879, 1911, goods supplied in lieu of wages.
1743. Ir. Act 17 Geo. II., c. 8 § 6. In case any person or persons … shall pay any such artificer, workman, servant or labourer … their wages, or other price agreed on, or any part thereof, either in goods or by way of truck, or in any other manner than in ready money.
1766. Museum Rust., VI. 420. The workmen alledged, that the clothiers … had … obliged them to take goods in truck, at exorbitant prices.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 12/2. Wages are largely paid in truck, in defiance of the law.
1886. Act 49 & 50 Vict., c. 40 § 1. The provisions of the Acts relating to truck.
1911. Daily News, 13 Oct., 3. She pays 2s. 9d. as well as a small amount of ‘truck,’ worth a few pence, for getting the whole of her washing done by a washerwoman.
3. ‘Traffic,’ intercourse, communication, dealings.
a. 1625. Fletcher, Chances, II. i. Hark ye Frederick, What truck betwixt my infant —?
1790. Morison, Poems, 106. Nor does our blinded master see The trocks between the Clerk and she.
1809. J. Skinner, Ep. to Capt. R. B., xv. Ye and I have had a trock This forty year.
1866. N. & Q., 3rd Ser. IX. 400/1. [In Suffolk] A man who has left off courting a girl, says that he has ‘no more truck along o’har’.
1894. Blackw. Mag., June, 748. You would think he is a Christian to see the troke there is between that beast and my man.
b. pl. Small matters of business or work; odd jobs, errands, chores. Sc. dial.
1808–18. Jamieson s.v. Troke, Troques, or trockies, pl. Small pieces of business that require a good deal of stirring.
1894. ‘Ian Maclaren,’ Bonnie Brier Bush, Lachlan Campbell, iii. A’ll come for ye as sune as a’ get … ma little trokes feenished.
† 4. Commodities for barter. Obs.
1555. Eden, Decades, 281. The Tartars … bringe none other wares then truckes or droues of swyfte runnynge horses and clokes made of whyte feltes.
1621. in Foster, Eng. Factories Ind. (1906), 233. The[y] would not geve 2s. a pece nether in money nor truck.
1688. Clayton, in Phil. Trans., XVII. 792. They must carry all sort of Truck that trade thither, having one Commodity to pass off another.
1770. Sir J. Banks, Jrnl. (1896), 332. The boat with some truck was sent ashore … in hopes of purchasing some trifling refreshment for the sick.
b. Small articles of a miscellaneous character; sundries; stuff; chiefly in depreciative use: odds and ends; things of little value; trash, rubbish. (Rarely pl.) Also fig.
1785. Shirrefs, Poems (1790), 250. Scales, compasses, and ither trocks.
1792. in Hist. Broughton Place U. P. Ch. (1872), 20. Your Priests wear bands an’ pouther’d hair, An’ sick vain troke.
1834. J. Hall, Kentucky, I. 220–1. Several bouncing girls … were clearing away the truck of the evening meal with a marvellous activity.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxx. Spent all his time in the bush and along the beach, picking up flowers and shells, and such truck.
1871. W. Alexander, Johnny Gibb, i. Is their trock a’ in noo, I won’er?
1890. L. C. D’Oyle, Notches, 67. What cooking utensils and other ‘truck’ we thought we needed.
1897. Kipling, Captains Courageous, i. I can’t smoke the truck the steward sells.
c. U.S. Market-garden produce; hence as a general term for culinary vegetables.
1784. Maryland Jrnl., 14 Dec., Advt. (Thornton). A large Room … for his Customers to lodge in, and deposit their Market-truck.
1822. J. Flint, Lett. Amer., 264. Truck … Culinary vegetables.
1870. S. Lanier, Nine fr. Eight, 2. I was drivin’ my two-mule waggin, With a lot of truck for sale.
1885. Blackw. Mag., Sept., 330/1. He is laying out the back land in truck or early vegetables. Ibid. (1902), April, 498/1. ‘Truck’ means briefly such things as can be grown for the Northern markets—cucumbers, cabbages, sweet potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes, &c.
5. attrib. and Comb.; in sense 2, as truck act, law, principle, system; in sense 4 c, truck-farm, -farmer, -farming, -garden, -gardener, -gardening, -patch, -produce; also truck-economy: see quot.; truck-house, in North America, a store-house for trading with Indians; also, any storage building (Funk’s Stand. Dict., 1895); truck-knight, -man: see quots.; truck-master, (a) one who is in charge of a truck-house; (b) an employer who uses the truck system; truck-shop, a shop at which vouchers given instead of wages may be exchanged for goods, a tommy-shop; truck-store = prec.; also, a greengrocery shop (local U.S.).
1889. R. T. Ely, Introd. Pol. Econ., I. vii. 50. *Truck-economy is the term used to denote the period which precedes the use of money.
1866. N. & Q., 3rd Ser. IX. 323/1. A truck garden, a *truck farm, is a market-garden or farm.
1877. A. Douai, Better Times (1884), 7. The *truck-farmers from Virginia down to Florida.
1885. Blackw. Mag., Sept., 331/1. The river-bluffs are admirably suited for *truck-farming.
1891. N. Y. Weekly Witness, 22 April, 2/2. A distinction is made between truck-farming and what is known as market-gardening…. Truck-farming is defined as the production of green vegetables on tracts remote from market.
1866. *Truck garden [see truck farm].
1868. Lossing, Hudson, 394. Numerous ‘truck’ gardens, from which the city draws vegetable supplies.
1889. L. H. Bailey (title), The Horticulturist’s Rule-Book. A Compendium of Useful Information for Fruit-Growers, *Truck-Gardeners, Florists, and Others.
1890. Boston (Mass.) Jrnl., 12 April, 2/4. During their two years’ residence they have done all of their own work and *truck-gardening.
1731. Massachusetts Stat., 9 Nov. The Indians … have their dependance on this government for supplies … several *truck-houses having been erected … for that purpose.
1753. Douglass, Brit. Settlem. N. Amer., 228. Some place of Strength, Security, or Retreat for our Indian traders under the name of a Trading or Truck-House.
1625. F. Markham, Bk. Hon., II. viii. § 2. Dunghill or *Truck-Knights, whose Honors haue no other assent or scale to rise by, but onely their wealth and purchase trucking and bargaining with gold or other merchandise.
1914. Daily News, 24 March, 6. For practical purposes the present *Truck Laws are a dead letter.
1864. Webster, *Truckman, 1. One who does business in the way of barter and exchange.
1694. Massachusetts Stat., 13 June. That all trade with the said Eastern Indians be managed and carried on at the charge of and with the public stock … by suitable *truck masters.
1767. T. Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., II. iii. 318. The charge of trading houses, truckmasters, garrisons, and a vessel employed in transporting goods.
1906. Daily Chron., 22 June, 5/2. The wool was given out, and the payment in tea or groceries for the manufactured article was made from the shop of a truck master.
1829. T. Flint, G. Mason, iii. 33. A garden, or, as the people call it, a *truck patch, was also prepared.
1837. Syd. Smith, 2nd Let. Archd. Singleton, Wks. 1859, II. 285/1. Recommending the *truck principle to the Bishops, and offering to pay them in hassocks, cassocks, aprons, shovel-bats [etc.].
1890. L. C. D’Oyle, Notches, 145. The proximity of the camp would ensure them a ready market for all *‘truck’ produce.
1845. Disraeli, Sybil, III. i. The Butty generally keeps a Tommy or *Truck shop and pays the wages of his labourers in goods.
1886. Appleton’s Ann. Cycl., 84/1. In Liége … employers compelled the labourers to purchase supplies from their *Truck stores, at prices from 50 to 90 per cent. above … retail rates.
1830. Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), II. 352. In the iron country … the *truck or tommy system generally prevails.
1869. Adam Smith’s W. N., I. x. II. I. 150, note. The truck system … is now uniformly illegal.
1740. Douglass, Disc. Curr. Brit. Plant. Amer., 4. All Commerce naturally is a *Truck Trade exchanging Commodities which we can spare (or their Value) for Goods we are in want of.
1794. Gaz. U.S.A. (Philad.), 6 Jan. (Thornton). It is a truck trade that is proposed.
