Word.ws English Dictionary

trundle

/ˈtɹʌndəl/

trundle noun: a low wagon or cart on small wheels, used to transport things. Also the ellipsis of trundle bed.

Noun

trundle (plural trundles)

  1. (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...1676, Moses Cook, chapter 10, in The Manner of Raising, Ordering, and Improving Forrest-Trees, London: Peter Parker, page 46
  2. (obsolete) A small wheel or roller.
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. (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

Verb

trundle (third-person singular simple present trundles, present participle trundling, simple past and past participle trundled)

  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
  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
    • 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;1761, George Colman, The Genius, No. 5, 6 August, 1761, in Prose on Several Occasions, London: T. Cadel, 1787, pp. 57-58
  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
    • 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
  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
    • Last night they trundled down the road
      That dead young soldier in his blood: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
  5. (intransitive) To move, often heavily or clumsily.
    • Betty. They are gone Sir, in great Anger. / Pet[ulant]. Enough, let 'em trundle. Anger helps Complexion, ſaves Paint.1700, [William] Congreve, The Way of the World, a Comedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act I, scene ix, page 13
    • ... the proprietor trundled away to fetch a second beer ...1948, Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms, Part One, 1
  6. (transitive) To cause (something) to roll or revolve; to roll (something) along.
    • to trundle a hoop or a ball
    • He layde downe hys poake, and tooke the cheeses, and dyd trundle them downe the hyll one after another:1565, Andrew Boorde, Merie Tales of the Made Men of Gotam, London: Thomas Colwell, Tale 3
    Synonyms:
    roll
  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
      In them was no fayth, but infydelytye1542, 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
    Synonyms:
    roll

Proper noun capitalized: Trundle

Trundle

  1. A locality in the Parkes council area, central New South Wales, Australia.

Also used as

trundle is also the ellipsis of trundle bed.

Examples of trundle in a sentence

  • 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.2023 May 1, W. Sedgwick Saunders, A Catalogue of Engraved Portraits, Topographical Drawings and Prints, Coins, Gems, Autographs...
  • 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:
  • […] 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:

All 23 example sentences with trundle

Synonyms of trundle

Forms of trundle

Noun
pluraltrundles
Verb
third-person singular presenttrundles
present participletrundling
past participletrundled
pasttrundled

Plural of trundle: trundles

Origin of trundle

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

Words formed from trundle

Phrases with trundle

Words that rhyme with trundle

Questions about trundle

What does trundle mean?
Trundle means a low wagon or cart on small wheels, used to transport things.
How do you use trundle in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is trundle?
Trundle can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce trundle?
Trundle is pronounced /ˈtɹʌndəl/.
What is the plural of trundle?
The plural of trundle is trundles.

Words near trundle in the dictionary

  1. trunck
  2. truncks
  3. trunctable
  4. truncus
  5. truncus arteriosus
  6. trundle
  7. trundle along
  8. trundle bed
  9. trundle beds
  10. trundle cart
  11. trundle carts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trundle (page history and authors); Trundle (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: “trundle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/trundle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.