trundler

Noun

trundler (plural trundlers)

1. A person who trundles (something or someone).
   • I shall begin with the Married Ladies, as this order will be found to be far the most numerous, and includes all the married women in town or country above the degree of a chair-woman or the trundler of a wheel-barrow.1755, George Colman, The Connoisseur, volume 1, London: R. Baldwin, page 260
   • According to the venerable woodcuts which form the frontispieces to Primers of the dark ages, the paths of learning run through […] pleasant pastures agreeably diversified, and peopled by joyous hoop-trundlers and kite-flyers,1845, Albert Richard Smith, chapter 8, in The Fortunes of the Scattergood Family, volume 1, London: R. Bentley, page 122
2. A bowler (player throwing the ball).
   • The high delivery of modern bowlers would horrify the famous trundlers of the good old days, when to deliver the ball from above the level of the shoulder was as heinous an offence as throwing is to-day […]1899, W. G. Grace, “W.G.”: Cricketing Reminiscences and Personal Recollections, London: J. Bowden, Introduction, page xv
   • Sometimes he would bowl to one of his children, and although on the field (a small strip of garden) there were only two cricketers, he would turn it into an England v. Australia match. The one batsman would stand for eleven men, and the one trundler would play the part of the regular and change...1914, William Bardsley Brash, chapter 10, in Love and Life, London: C.H. Kelly, page 146
   1. A bowler who bowls slowly; a mediocre bowler.
      • The next bowler was a trundler, and Luton, evidently inspired by Bognor’s cover drive, hit him to all corners of the ground.1979, Tim Heald, chapter 5, in Just Desserts, New York: Scribner, page 104
      • But he wouldn’t be a great cricketer; he was just a trundler, really, accurate enough, but no flair.2010, Kate De Goldi, chapter 8, in The 10 p.m. Question, Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, page 217
3. (New Zealand) Shopping cart.
   • The supermarket, its turnstiles and trundlers, gave substance to hopes as desirable and distant as heaven.1989, Trudie McNaughton, In Deadly Earnest: A Collection of Fiction by New Zealand Women, 1870s-1980s, Century Hutchinson, page 153
   • A North Shore town centre is being ringed by an electronic fence in an attempt to stop thefts of supermarket trundlers.2010, Wayne Thompson, “Electronic war on trolley thieves”, in New Zealand Herald
4. (New Zealand) A foldable shopping bag with a light frame and wheels.
   • […] I couldn’t see where I was going and banged into a baggy old lady pulling a trundler full of shopping,1996, Tina Shaw, chapter 17, in Birdie, Auckland: David Ling, page 129
   • Taking the blue canvas shopping trundler from the alcove in the hallway […] Mattina walked to where she hoped the dairy might be,1988, Janet Frame, The Carpathians, New York: G. Braziller, Part 1, Chapter 4, p. 24
5. (Australia, New Zealand) Golf pushcart.
   • […] many golf trolleys, or trundlers as the Australians call them, are equipped with a small seat upon which to rest between shots.1988, Brian Morgan, “Australia, New Zealand and the Far East”, in A World Portrait of Golf, New York: Gallery Books, page 96
6. (obsolete) A device made of a wooden stick with a wheel at the bottom, a crossbar handle at the top, and a hook in the middle, used to move pails and cans while gardening.
7. (obsolete) A wooden-wheeled cart used for gardening.
8. (obsolete, slang) Pea (vegetable).