Lorry
Posted by ESC on September 27, 2000
In Reply to: Lorry posted by James Briggs on September 27, 2000
: : Does anyone know why a lorry is called a lorry? (Lorry being what we in the U.S. call a truck.) I saw this question on another forum. I checked all my references and came up with zero. Even OED said the origin of the word was "obscure."
: I looked on the Britannica web site. This all it says, under TRUCK, but on a search for LORRY:
: "also called LORRY any motor vehicle designed to carry freight or goods or to perform special services such as fire fighting. The truck was derived from horse-driven wagon technology, and some of the pioneer manufacturers came from the wagon business. Because of their speed and flexibility, trucks have come to carry a quarter of the intercity freight in the United States, and they enjoy an almost total monopoly in intracity freight delivery."
: Not much help, I'm afraid.
It may turn out to be one of those "unsolved mysteries." The site where I found the inquiry was Word for Word forum -- plateaupress.com.au/wfw/wfwindex.htm
- Lorry James Briggs 09/28/00