Word.ws English Dictionary

Toonerville Trolley

Toonerville Trolley proper noun: an old-fashioned single-car trolley.

Proper noun

Toonerville Trolley (plural Toonerville Trolleys)

  1. (informal) An old-fashioned single-car trolley.
    • Such a car was the feature of a comic strip of those days, "The Toonerville Trolley that Meets All the Trains", and the Farm cars were affectionately known as "The Toonerville Trolley".1945, J. H. Hodgson, The Heavens Above and the Earth Beneath: A History of the Dominion Observatories, Geological Survey of Canada, page 66
    • [T]he two modes of transportation available were taxicab and the “Toonerville Trolley.” ... The name “Toonerville Trolley” was taken from a popular cartoon of the time because we thought the rock and roll of the streetcar and the uphill and downhill route seemed to be lifted from the cartoon.1995, Charity Adams Earley, One Woman's Army: A Black Officer Remembers the WAC, Texas A&M University Press, page 118
  2. A noticeably inexpensive trip.
    • Our airline must be something out of the Toonerville Trolley.1969 October 10, American Flyers Airline, advertisement, Life, volume 67, number 175, page 124
    • At that point Louis had gone into the dispensary and taken a Tuinal—what his first med school roommate had called Tooners. “Hop up on the Toonerville Trolley, Louis,” he'd say, “and I'll put on some Credence.”1983, Stephen King, Pet Sematary, Doubleday

Examples of Toonerville Trolley in a sentence

  • The trolley on that route was referred to as “Old Dolly” and the “Toonerville Trolley” (from the comic strip)2002, Dale E. Shaffer, Salem, OH: A Quaker City History, Arcadia Publishing, page 93:
  • The trolley, affectionately nicknamed the “Toonerville Trolley” after a popular cartoon strip that ran until 1947.2007, “Vermont: Toonerville Trail”, in Rail-Trails: New England, Wilderness Press, page 205:
  • The Pacific electric red car tracks ran through the area, and the local trolley became known as the Toonerville trolley.2007, John H. Davis, What Do White Americans Want to Know about Black Americans But Are Afraid to Ask, Xlibris, page 86:
  • To travel that mile there was an honest-to-god Toonerville Trolley.2008, Thomas L. Hamm, Jr., A Lifetime Spent Doing What I Loved to Do!: An Autobiography, iUniverse, page 15:

Forms of Toonerville Trolley

pluralToonerville Trolleys

Origin of Toonerville Trolley

From the 1908–1955 cartoon featuring a trolley.

Questions about Toonerville Trolley

What does Toonerville Trolley mean?
Toonerville Trolley means an old-fashioned single-car trolley.
How do you use Toonerville Trolley in a sentence?
The trolley on that route was referred to as “Old Dolly” and the “Toonerville Trolley” (from the comic strip)
What part of speech is Toonerville Trolley?
Toonerville Trolley is a proper noun.

Words near Toonerville Trolley in the dictionary

  1. toona
  2. toonas
  3. Toone
  4. tooner
  5. tooners
  6. Toonerville Trolley
  7. Toones
  8. toong
  9. Toongabbie
  10. Toongi
  11. toongs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Toonerville Trolley (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Toonerville Trolley.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/toonerville_trolley. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.