Other forms: trekking, treks, trekked
A trek is a long, hard journey on foot, over ground with no road. Boots caked in mud, a pack digging into your shoulders, six hours of uphill before you stop for lunch.
It is a verb as well — you trek through the Himalayas — and trekking is a whole holiday industry of guides, lodges and hired mules. In relaxed speech any tiring journey becomes a trek: the supermarket is a trek from here, it is a trek up to the third floor with the shopping. A trek is never a stroll; the word carries the effort inside it. Watch the spelling of the forms, which double the k: trekked, trekking. Pony trek, trekking poles, a trekking route — the word attaches happily to gear and to trips.
1nountrekA long, difficult journey made on foot, usually across wild country.
“The trek to base camp took eleven days.”
synonyms: hike, expedition
2verbhardTo make a long, hard journey on foot.
“They trekked across the plateau with two guides and a mule.”
3nounfeelsAny journey that feels long and tiring (informal).
“It is a real trek from the station to the hotel.”
trek is a journey.
Also accepted in games: hike
Trek walked into English from Afrikaans, the language that grew out of Dutch in South Africa. Behind it stands Dutch trekken, to pull or haul, and behind that a Proto-Indo-European root *dreg-, to drag or scrape. The journey in the word starts as dragging: something hauled slowly over rough ground.
Proto-Indo-European
*dreg- — to drag, scrape
Proto-Germanic
*trekaną
Proto-West Germanic
*trekan
Old Dutch
*trekkan
Middle Dutch
trekken
Dutch
trekken
Afrikaans
trek
English, today
trek
Built from
From Afrikaans trek, from Dutch trekken, from Middle Dutch trekken and treken (“to trek, place, bring, move”), from Old Dutch trekkan, trekan, from Proto-West Germanic trekan, from Proto-Germanic trekaną, trakjaną (“to drag, haul, scrape, pull”), from Proto-Indo-European dreg- (“to drag, scrape”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA