Truckle
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A small wheel; a caster or pulley.
- 2 a low bed to be slid under a higher bed wordnet
- 3 A small wheel of cheese.
- 4 Ellipsis of truckle bed. abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis
- 1 To roll or move upon truckles, or casters; to trundle.
- 2 To act in a submissive manner; to fawn, submit to a superior. intransitive
""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."
- 3 try to gain favor by cringing or flattering wordnet
- 4 To sleep in a truckle bed. intransitive
- 5 yield to out of weakness wordnet
Example
More examples""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."
Etymology
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.
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.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.