Other forms: trunks
The trunk is the thick wooden column a tree stands on — the part with the bark, below where the branches begin. Put your arms round an old oak and you are hugging the trunk.
The word travels a long way from trees. An elephant's trunk is its nose, and the elephant drinks with it, washes with it and pulls leaves down with it. A trunk is also a heavy box with a lid and a lock, the kind that went on ships and now sits in an attic full of blankets. Your body has one: the trunk is everything except the head, arms and legs, which is why a fitness class tells you to keep the trunk upright. Americans put the shopping in the trunk of the car where British drivers say boot. One thing a trunk never is: a small bag. It is always the big one, and swimming trunks are always plural.
1nounstemThe thick main stem of a tree, from the ground up to the first branches.~32%
“Lightning had split the trunk from top to bottom.”
synonyms: stem
2nountrunkAn elephant's long nose.~10%
“The elephant curled its trunk round the branch and pulled.”
3nouncaseA large strong box with a lid, for storing or carrying things.~42%
“Her grandmother's trunk was full of blankets and letters.”
synonyms: chest
4nountorsoThe body without the head, arms and legs.~16%
“Keep your trunk upright and bend from the hips.”
synonyms: torso
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 154 sentences found in the wild and placed 73 of them on a sense (81 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Latin truncus meant cut off, lopped, maimed — so a trunk was a tree with its branches taken away. Old French tronc carried all three of the meanings English still keeps: an alms box, a tree trunk, and a body with the head gone. Truncate is the same word, doing the cutting out loud.
Proto-Indo-European
*twerḱ-
Latin
truncus — a stock, lopped tree trunk
Old French
tronc — alms box, tree trunk, headless body
Middle English
tronke
English, today
trunk
Built from
From Middle English tronke, trunke, from Old French tronc (“alms box, tree trunk, headless body”), from Latin truncus (“a stock, lopped tree trunk”), from truncus (“cut off, maimed, mutilated”). For the verb, compare French tronquer, and see truncate. a doublet of truncus and tronk.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA