< 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

TRUCKLE, a verb meaning to submit servilely or fawningly to another's bidding, to yield in a weak, feeble or contemptible way. The origin is the “truckle bed,” a small bed on wheels which could be pushed under a large one. In early times servants or children slept in such beds, placed at the foot of their masters' and parents' bed, but the name first appears as a university word, and was derived direct from Latin trochlea, a wheel or pulley-block, Greek τροχός, wheel (τρέχειν, to run).

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