English
trunkload
From trunk + load.
Latin truncus ‘a stock, lopped tree trunk’
Old French tronc ‘alms box, tree trunk, headless body’
Middle English tronke ‘a tree trunk’
English trunk
Proto-Indo-European *leyt- ‘to go, go forth’
…
Proto-Germanic *laidō ‘leading, way’
Proto-West Germanic *laidu
Old English lād ‘course, journey; carrying’
Middle English lode ‘way, course; burden’
English load
Today it means
noun A quantity sufficient to fill the trunk of a car
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “trunkload”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / trunkload