Virginia Heffernan
Did you know?
When truckle was first used in English in the 15th century, it meant "small wheel" or "pulley." Such small wheels were often attached to the underside of low beds to allow them to be easily moved under high beds for storage. These beds came to be known as truckle beds (or trundle beds), and a verb truckle—meaning "to sleep in a truckle bed"—came into being. By the 17th century, the fact that truckle beds were pushed under larger standard beds had inspired a figurative sense of truckle: "to yield to the wishes of another" or "to bend obsequiously." The initial verb sense became obsolete; the newer sense is fairly rare but is still in use.
Examples of truckle in a Sentence
Maureen Dowd, The Mercury News, 4 Mar. 2025
During the campaign, most of Trump’s fallen rivals blasted him in exceptional terms—before truckling to support him against Hillary Clinton.
—James Fallows, The Atlantic, 8 Oct. 2017
Garbarino enjoyed his time with the Southern river rats and mountain folk, and their refusal to truckle to authority delights him to this day.
—David Samuels, Town & Country, 18 Oct. 2013
Cite this Entry
“Truckle.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truckle. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
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