trundle

Etymology

From Middle English trondlin, trondelen, a variation of Middle English trendlen. More at trendle, trindle.

noun

1. Ellipsis of trundle bed: A low bed on wheels that can be rolled underneath another bed.
   "But I always knew it was a one-year job." "Oh you don't mind being like a rented article from Hertz's, like a trundle bed or a baby's potty?"
2. (obsolete) A low wagon or cart on small wheels, used to transport things.
   […] you may […] place the whole weighty Clod upon a Trundle to be convey’d, and Replanted where you please, 1670, John Evelyn, chapter 3, in Sylva, or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees, London, page 21
   […] in case the Tree be very great […] you must then have a Gin or Crane, such a one as they have to Load Timber with; and by that you may weigh it out of its place, and place the whole upon a Trundle or Sledge, to convey it to the place you desire; and by the afore-said Engine you may take it off from the Trundle, and set it in its hole at your pleasure. 1676, Moses Cook, chapter 10, in The Manner of Raising, Ordering, and Improving Forrest-Trees, London: Peter Parker, page 46
3. (obsolete) A small wheel or roller.
4. A motion as of something moving upon little wheels or rollers; a rolling motion.
   There was something expert and even vicious in the flick of Paul’s arm and the hard momentary trundle of the [cricket] ball along the curving rails. 2011, Alan Hollinghurst, The Stranger’s Child, New York: Knopf, Part 3, Chapter 6, p. 276
5. The sound made by an object being moved on wheels.
   […] an old man who could always be located from far away by the sound of a scythe or the trundle of a wheelbarrow. 1943, Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear, London: Heinemann, Book 2, Chapter 1, section 5, p. 143
   He could hear the trundle of cart wheels. 2019, Robert Harris, chapter 3, in The Second Sleep, London: Hutchinson
6. (engineering) A lantern wheel, or one of its bars.
   The Cog-wheels in most Wind-Mills are (in the diameter) 8. foot or under […] the trundle is at the least two foot, which is 4. to one. 1651, Cressy Dymock, An Invention of Engines in Motion, London: Richard Woodnoth, page 5
7. (heraldry, rare) A spool or skein of golden thread (chiefly in the arms of the Embroiderers Company, now the Company of Broderers).
   between as many Trundles, Or […] 1724, John Guillim, A Display of Heraldry, page 14
   Gules, two broaches in saltire argent, between as many trundles or, on a chief of the second a lion passant gules - EMBROIDERERS' COMPANY at Bristol and Chester. 1894, Henry Gough, James Parker, A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry, page 226
   Party of six argent and sable, on a fesse gules, between three lions of England, two broches (or embroidery needles) saltirewise between as many trundles or. Crest. - On a heart the Holy Dove displayed, argent, radiated or. 2023-05-01, W. Sedgwick Saunders, A Catalogue of Engraved Portraits, Topographical Drawings and Prints, Coins, Gems, Autographs, Antiquities, and Works of Art, BoD – Books on Demand

verb

1. (transitive) To wheel or roll (an object on wheels), especially by pushing, often slowly or heavily.
   Every morning, the vendors trundle their carts out into the market.
   to trundle a bed or a gun carriage
   When the bin men come down the back alley to trundle our wheelie bins to their truck, the dog becomes hysterical […] 1995, Val McDermid, The Mermaids Singing, New York: HarperPaperbacks, published 1997, page 55
2. To transport (something or someone) using an object on wheels, especially one that is pushed.
   […] they are attended like the Lords and Princes of the earth, with mighty retinues, and are carryed in coaches with foure or six horses a peece in them, when a wheele barrow such as they trundle white wine vineger about the towne were a great deale fitter for them […] 1637, John Bastwick, The Answer of John Bastwick, Doctor of Phisicke, to the Exceptions Made against His Letany […] which is annexed to the Letany it selfe, Leiden, Letany, Part 2
   1761, George Colman, The Genius, No. 5, 6 August, 1761, in Prose on Several Occasions, London: T. Cadel, 1787, pp. 57-58, The reading female hires her novels from some country circulating library, which consists of about an hundred volumes, or, is trundled from the next market town in a wheelbarrow;
   […] Peter trundled a load of watermelons up the hill in his wheelbarrow. 1918, Willa Cather, My Ántonia, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Book 1, Chapter 5, p. 39
   The kraal walls are two feet thick and higher than his head; they are made of flat blue-grey stones, every one of them trundled here by donkey-cart. 1997, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 11, in Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life, London: Secker & Warburg, page 91
3. (intransitive) To move heavily (on wheels).
   […] he can glibly run over Non-sense, as an empty Cart trundles down a Hill. 1662, John Birkenhead, The Assembly-Man, London: Richard Marriot, page 14
   Suddenly from around a bend a wagon trundled toward him. 1987, Toni Morrison, Beloved, New York: Vintage, published 2004, page 25
   My trip ends at Wrexham General. While the '150' trundles the final half-mile down the single line to Wrexham Central, I nip over the footbridge to explore the main part of the station. November 2 2022, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, page 58
4. (transitive) To move (something or someone), often heavily or clumsily.
   I’ll clap a pair of horses to your chaise that shall trundle you off in a twinkling, 1773, Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, London: F. Newbery, act II, page 45
   1928, W. B. Yeats, “Meditations in Time of Civil War,” 6. “The Stare’s Nest by My Window,” in The Tower, London: Macmillan, p. 27, Last night they trundled down the road That dead young soldier in his blood:
5. (intransitive) To move, often heavily or clumsily.
   […] we set off again, the dog trundling apathetic at his master’s heels, 1957, D. H. Lawrence, Etruscan Places, New York: Viking, Chapter 3, part 1, p. 64
   she let the marmalade stay where it was, trundling in blobs down her plump cheeks 1977, Diana Wynne Jones, Charmed Life
6. (transitive) To cause (something) to roll or revolve; to roll (something) along.
   to trundle a hoop or a ball
   1565, Andrew Boorde, Merie Tales of the Made Men of Gotam, London: Thomas Colwell, Tale 3, He layde downe hys poake, and tooke the cheeses, and dyd trundle them downe the hyll one after another:
   If thou, my Deere, a winner be At trundling of the Ball, The wager thou shalt have, and me, And my misfortunes all. 1648, Robert Herrick, “Stool-ball”, in Hesperides, London: John Williams and Francis Eglesfield, page 280
   At gaming, perhaps, I may win; With cards I may take the flats in, Or trundle false dice, and they’re nick’d: 1784, John O’Keeffe, The Poor Soldier, Dublin, act II, scene 5, page 27
   […] all our dainty terms for fratricide, Terms which we trundle smoothly o’er our tongues Like mere abstractions, 1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Fears in Solitude, London: J. Johnson, page 6
   1818, John Keats, letter to Fanny Keats dated 4 July, 1818, in Sidney Colvin (ed.), Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends, London: Macmillan, 1891, p. 122, [I am] so fatigued that when I am asleep you might sew my nose to my great toe and trundle me round the town like a Hoop without waking me.
7. (intransitive) To roll or revolve; to roll along.
   At Chrystes death, whan the Apostles all Theyr mayster dyd leaue, throughe mutabylytie Men were founde lyght, and trundlynge as a ball 1542, Robert Burdet, “The Fawcon”, in A Dyalogue Defensyve for Women, London: Rycharde Banckes
   Water is apt to move, being round like Balls, No points to fixe, doth trundle as it falls. 1653, Margaret Cavendish, “The Agilenesse of Water”, in Poems, and Fancies, London: J. Martin and J. Allestrye, page 28