local. Also 6–8 trugg. [? Dialectal variant of TROUGH.]
1. An old local measure for wheat, equal to two-thirds of a bushel. Also attrib., trug-corn, trug-wheat: see quots.
[c. 1350. in Blount, Law Dict. (1670), s.v., Tres Trugge frumenti vel avenae faciunt 2 Bushels infra Prebendam de Hunderton in Ecclesia Heref.]
1670. Blount, Law Dict., s.v., At Lempster at this day the Vicar has Trug Corn allow’d him for Officiating at some Chappels of ease.
1676. Coles, Dict., Trug, three trugs make two bushels.
1866. N. & Q., 3rd Ser. X. 415/2. There is in the parish of Leominster, a payment of the nature of tithe, which is known as trug-wheat.
2. A shallow wooden tray or pan to hold milk; also a tray or hod for mortar; also (northern dial.), a wooden coal-box.
1580, 1630. [implied in TRUGGER].
1600. in W. F. Shaw, Mem. Easty (1870), 226. Item in the mylke house … two dowsin of bowles and Truggs.
1630. Will W. Buncker (C. C. Canterb. MS.). Two milke trugges [and] two milk boules.
1674. Ray, S. & E. C. Words, 77. A Trug, a tray for milk or the like, Suss. Dial.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Trugg, (Country-Word) a Milk-Tray or such like Vessel, a Hod to carry Mortar in.
1847–78. Halliwell, Ash-trug, a coal-scuttle. North.
1878–81. Cumberld. Gloss., Trug, a wooden coal-box.
3. A shallow oblong basket made of wooden strips with a handle from side to side, chiefly used for carrying fruit, vegetables, and the like; also trug-basket.
1862. M. A. Lower, in Athenæum, 30 Aug., 281. A trug-basket,… a vessel … almost peculiar to the county of Sussex. Some such trugs were sent to the Great Exhibition of 1851. Ibid. (1882), 26 Aug., 271/2. A Sussex trug … is a flat basket, not of wicker, but of flakes of sallow, braced with ash and furnished with a handle of the latter wood.
1909. Spectator, 10 July, 49/1. She descends with a huge wooden trug half filled with maire.
