Lorry Meaning
/ˈlɒɹi/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA large and heavy motor vehicle designed to carry goods or soldiers; a truck
nounA truck with an open carriage, sometimes used for transporting construction workers.
Sentence Examples
In Britain a truck is referred to as a lorry.
The lorry had to stop because its load had fallen off.
He was riding his cycle home when he was hit by a lorry.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The driver loaded boxes into the ____ to deliver them to the store.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
A large ____ was parked in the driveway, waiting to be loaded with goods for the long journey today.
Word Origin & History
Uncertain; perhaps from dialectal English lurry (“to lug or pull about, drag”) (compare dialectal lurry-cart), or from the forename Laurie. First attested in early to middle 19th century.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"But whenever one of the motor-trucks lumbering by bore a big U.S. on its rear panel Troy pushed his light ambulance ahead and skimmed past, just for the joy of seeing the fresh young heads rising pyramid-wise about the sides of the lorry, hearing the snatches of familiar songs—"Hail, hail, the gang's all here!" and "We won't come back till it's over over here!"—and shouting back in reply to a stentorian "Hi, kid, beat it!", "Bet your life I will, old man!""
— 1918, Edith Wharton, chapter IX, in The Marne, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, pages 87–88:
"The railway is still vital to Jordan's export trade, but in spite of the poor quality of the road, diesel lorries are gradually robbing it of freight traffic, and anyone who can afford to fly does so rather than face the long desert journey by rail."
— 1956 March, R. C. Blaker, “The Hedjaz Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 167:
"The most frequent age for starting in the actual occupation of lorry driving is 17 years. Trampers tend to start later, the mode amongst them being 19 years. The mean average age for beginning in lorry driving in the sample is between 21 and 23 years. The mean average number of years spent in lorry driving varies according to the type of driver."
— 1968, Peter G. Hollowell, “The Lorry Driver’s Career”, in The Lorry Driver (The International Library of Sociology; 154), London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York, N.Y.: Humanities Press, →OCLC; republished Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 1998 (2007 printing), →ISBN, page 61:
"Until the main road from Hatfield to Hertford was diverted a few years ago, heavy lorries trundling through the village sometimes knocked chunks off corner buildings, but now the village has regained much of its former tranquillity."
— 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 224, about Hertingfordbury:
"Our journey through the streets of Singapore awoke strange emotions. Very little of the structural damage seemed to have been repaired beyond make-shift patchwork. The streets had a dingy and forlorn look. We arrived outside the British American Tobacco building and had our first experience of the shouting and hustlings that accompanied all Japanese supervision of our movements. We were shouted at to get out of the lorry with our baggage and make out way into the building."
— 1987, Richard Pool, “Prisoner of War”, in Course for Disaster: From Scapa Flow to the River Kwai, London: Leo Cooper, Heinemann, →ISBN, page 164:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The driver loaded boxes into the ____ to deliver them to the store.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
A large ____ was parked in the driveway, waiting to be loaded with goods for the long journey today.