Other forms: training, trains, trained
A train is the long line of carriages that runs on rails from one city to the next, pulled by an engine at the front. You catch it, miss it, sit on it, and get off at your stop.
As a verb it is about repeated practice: athletes train every morning, and you train a dog, train a new nurse, train for a marathon. The old meaning still shows in the noun, because a train is anything drawn out behind — the train of a wedding dress, a train of camels, a train of thought that someone interrupts. Two prepositions to fix now: you travel BY train, and you are ON the train, never in it. And mind the pair train and coach — a coach is a bus in Britain, so a coach trip and a train trip are different journeys.
1nountrainA line of railway carriages pulled along rails by an engine.~84%
“The train to Leeds leaves from platform four.”
2verbpracticeTo practise a skill or exercise regularly in order to get better at it.~2%
“She trains at the pool before work every day.”
3verbteachTo teach someone the skills needed for a job or task.~10%
“The company trains its own engineers.”
4nounseriesA series of things or events following one after another.~2%
“A train of small mistakes led to the accident.”
5nounlongThe part of a long dress that trails on the ground behind.~2%
“Two children carried the train of her wedding dress.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 19 sentences found in the wild and placed 19 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Train came from Old French train, a drawing out or a delay, from traïner, to pull. That runs back through Vulgar Latin to Latin trahō, to pull or draw, and to the Proto-Indo-European root dʰregʰ-, to drag. The railway train is the youngest member of the family and the most literal one: a string of things dragged along behind.
Old French
train
Middle English
trayne — train
English, today
train
Built from
From Middle English trayne (“train”), from Old French train, from Old French trainer. From Middle English trayne (“train”), from Old French train (“a delay, a drawing out”), from traïner (“to pull out, to draw”), from Vulgar Latin traginō, from tragō, from Latin trahō (“to pull, to draw”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European dʰregʰ- (“to pull, draw, drag”). The verb was derived from the noun in Middle English. For the meaning to teach compare typologically ната́скивать (akin to тащи́ть).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA