trolley, trolly, n.
(ˈtrɒlɪ)
Also trawley.
[? f. troll v.; cf. lorry, rolley, rulley.]
1. Locally applied to a low cart of various kinds, e.g. a costermonger's cart; at Yarmouth, a narrow cart or sledge adapted for the ‘rows’ or narrow alleys (row n.1 4 c). Cf. troll n.1 5 and trolley-cart in 4 below.
| 1823 Moor Suffolk Words s.v., Sich roads! We got rarely jounced i' the trolly. 1870 Pall Mall G. 25 Aug. 4 The prisoner was leading his horse in a trolly along Fairfield-road, Bow. |
2. a. A low truck without sides or ends,
esp. one with flanged wheels for running on a railway, or a track of rails in a factory, etc.
Cf. bogie 1.
| 1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, Trolley, a kind of railway vehicle. 1861 Smiles Engineers II. 201 The goods in the London Docks are hauled in trollies, waggons or hand⁓barrows from ship to ship. 1862 Mrs. H. Wood Mrs. Hallib. xix, I'll send in a trolley of coal. 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss. s.v., The two-wheeled trolly is used in a rolling-mill to wheel the puddle-balls to the squeezer. 1881 H. W. Nicholson From Sword to Share xxv. 182 The train..was made up of some dozen sideless trucks, or trawleys. 1885 Law Times 16 May 47/1 A porter..put all the luggage on a trolley..and wheeled the trolley on to the platform. |
b. In
fig. phr. off one's trolley, crazy.
Cf. rocker1 2 c.
slang.| 1896 Ade Artie x. 92 Any one that's got his head full o' the girl proposition's liable to go off his trolley at the first curve. 1903 A. H. Lewis Boss xix. 264 She's off her trolley. She toins sick; an' in a week she croaks. 1949 N. R. Nash Young & Fair ii. ii. 66 If you suspect Patty, you're off your trolley! 1976 National Observer (U.S.) 4 Sept. 13/3 Anybody who buys a luxury liner for use as a floating hotel is off his trolley. 1983 Times 5 Feb. 3/1 The London college gym mistress who is suing her former lover for libel in the High Court, heard a lawyer say yesterday that she had ‘gone off her trolley’ about the affair. |
c. A small table or stand on wheels or castors for use in serving food, transporting light objects, luggage, etc. Freq. as the second element in
Combs. supermarket trolley: see
supermarket 2 b; also
ellipt.| 1937, etc. [see tea-trolley s.v. tea n. 9 c]. 1944 D. Welch In Youth is Pleasure ii. 39 Some [waiters] carried trays poised high in the air; others trundled chromium trolleys with glass shelves, on which brilliant little cakes were piled. a 1948 ― Voice through Cloud (1950) iv. 39 When the porters..started to wheel him out of the ward, he sat up on the trolley, so that the red blankets fell off him. 1949 S. Smith Holiday xiii. 173 The semolina pudding came in on the trolly. 1963 [see hostess trolley s.v. hostess 4]. 1973 J. Wilson Truth or Dare ii. 24, I couldn't help noticing what she'd got in her trolly: sausages, luncheon meat and a tub of marge. 1977 Lancs. Life Nov. 107/1 (caption) A good trolley is an invaluable aid to efficient hostessmanship. 1982 Amer. Speech LVII. 154 Trolley, surgical dressing cart (British). |
3. a. A grooved metallic pulley which travels along, and receives current from, an overhead electric wire, the current being then conveyed by a
trolley-pole or other conductor to a motor, usually that of a car on a street railroad; also called
trolley-wheel (see 4). Also applied to any pulley running along an overhead track, as in a
trolley-scale (see 4).
| 1891 in Cent. Dict. 1902 Sloane Stand. Electr. Dict. s.v., Trolleys are principally used on electric railroads. 1909 Cent. Dict. Suppl. s.v. Abattoir scales, The meat, suspended from hooks attached to a trolley traveling on a telpherage system or overhead track, is run upon a short section of track which forms the weighing-platform of the scales... Another form of scale employs a trolley for weighing materials in transit, with a scale-beam attached directly to the trolley and traveling with it. Called a trolley-scale. |
b. Short for
trolley-car: see 4.
U.S.| 1891 Month LXXIII. 24, I jumped off the trolley. 1908 Daily Chron. 20 Jan. 4/4 To go anywhere in Boston you must take a tram..(they call it a trolley). |
4. attrib. and
Comb., as
trolley-journey,
trolley-load,
trolley system;
trolley-bar = trolley-pole;
trolley-bus (
† trolli-bus), a trackless passenger vehicle that gets its power from an overhead cable by means of a pole and trolley (see 3); also
attrib.;
trolley-car (
U.S.), an electric car driven by means of a trolley (see 3);
trolley-cart (
local), a Yarmouth trolley (see 1);
trolley coal, coal conveyed on trolleys or street trucks for sale;
trolley-ear,
trolley-hanger, a contrivance for supporting and insulating a trolley-wire;
trolley-frog (see
quot.);
trolley-harp,
trolley-head, the holder at the end of a trolley-pole which supports the trolley-wheel;
trolley-hook, a hook used for replacing a trolley-wheel when it slips off the wire (
Funk's Stand. Dict. 1895);
trolley-line, a line of electric cars run by means of trolleys (
ibid.);
trolleyman, a man employed to drive a trolley or a trolley-car;
trolley-pole, a hinged pole on an electric car, supporting the trolley (see 3), and conveying the current from the overhead wire;
trolley-rail, a rail conveying current to the motors on an electric railway;
trolley-road, an electric tram-line worked on the trolley system (
U.S.);
trolley-scale, a scale for weighing meat or other commodities, in which the scale-beam is attached to a trolley travelling on an overhead track, as in a market or warehouse;
trolley shop, a trolley (see 2 c) from which goods are sold,
esp. in a hospital;
trolley-wheel = sense 3;
trolley-wire, an overhead electric wire supplying current to the trolleys of electric cars.
| 1891 Pall Mall G. 30 Oct. 6/2 On the top of the car is a ‘*trolley bar’. |
| 1921 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 13 Oct. 11/7 The *trolley-buses..are of the single-deck type, with seats for twenty-four passengers. 1927 Daily Express 20 July 9/6 The ‘trolli-bus’ traffic receipts last week..were {pstlg}400 more than the receipts for the corresponding week last year. 1939 J. B. Priestley Let People Sing i. 13 He climbed into a trolley-bus, which after a mile or so stopped at a large gateway. 1961 C. Willock Death in Covert xii. 224 A clang and ring that reminded him incongruously of vibrating trolley-bus wires. 1978 Country Life 13 Apr. 956/2 The nearly extinct tram and trolley bus will be revived. |
| 1895 Pop. Sci. Monthly Apr. 758 The lazy barges will perhaps rival in bustle the *trolley car on land. |
| 1865 Daily Tel. 25 Aug., Yarmouth ingenuity..hit upon the notion of the ‘*trolly cart’..a sledge, about 12 ft. long, but not much more than a yard in breadth, mounted upon wheels less than 3 ft. high. |
| 1890 Daily News 18 Mar. 4/6 They further increased the price of house coal by 2s. a ton, and *trolly coal by 1s. 6d. per ton. |
| 1898 Houston Dict. Electr., *Trolley Ear, a metal piece supported by an insulator to which the trolley wire is fastened. *Trolley Frog, the device to which the trolley wire is attached, employed for causing a car to deviate from one line to another. |
| Ibid. s.v. Hanger, A *trolley hanger on a straight trolley line. |
| 1904 Electr. World & Engin. 18 June 1167 *Trolley-harp. |
| 1896 A. Morrison Child of the Jago 190 To start..on a *trolley journey. |
| 1898 Daily News 22 Oct. 3/5 A *trolley-load of foreign silks, velvets, and fancy woollen goods. |
| 1897 Ibid. 23 Feb. 7/4 The number on strike at Sunderland is 111, including 51 *trolleymen. 1900 Ibid. 11 June 3/2 The strike of street trolley (electric tramcar) men [at St. Louis]. |
| 1895 Funk's Stand. Dict., *Trolley-pole. 1897 Daily News 19 July 8/4 The electricity is transmitted to the motors on the car by means of trolley poles, or ‘fishing rods’, which..glide along the wire as the car runs. |
| 1897 Trans. Amer. Inst. Electr. Engin. 355 *Trolley-rail. |
| 1895 Information 6 July 3/2 This electric railroad is practically a very heavy and substantially built *trolley road. The trolley wire..is hung from very heavy poles. |
| 1909 *Trolley-scale [see 3]. |
| 1958 Times 7 July (Suppl.) p. xix/1 Volunteer nurses..still give invaluable aid in hospital wards; volunteers take round *trolley-shops. 1974 Country Life 4 Apr. 797/1 We [sc. the Red Cross] organize out-patients' canteens. Trolley shops. Libraries. |
| 1892 Daily News 4 Oct. 5/1 An intra-mural elevated railway is being constructed... Its cars will be moved by electric traction on the ‘*trolley’ system. |
| 1891 Pall Mall G. 30 Oct. 6/2 A small grooved ‘*trolley wheel’..runs against the under side of the overhead wire. 1895 *Trolley wire [see trolley road]. |
Hence
ˈtrolley v., trans. to convey by trolley;
intr. to travel by trolley;
ˈtrolleyful, as much or many as a trolley will hold;
ˈtrolleyize v., trans. to adapt to the trolley system, as a tramline (
U.S.).
| 1882 W. E. Baxter Winter in India viii. 84 Mr. Prestage..had arranged that we should be ‘*trollied’ down the mountains instead of going in the train. 1900 Daily News 21 Mar. 5/4 These two officers trollied along the line..till they got close to Springfontein Station. 1936 ‘M. Innes’ Death at President's Lodging xiii. 234 Ah, well, my picture of Háveland trolleying his own bones plus corpse up the garden path was no doubt, as you suggested, a bit steep. 1978 P. McCutchan Blackmail North vi. 69 Stocks being trolleyed in from freighter aircraft. |
| 1889 Kipling From Sea to Sea (1899) II. xxvii. 34 The cans..were..slidden along by the *trolleyful. 1900 Daily News 21 May 4/1 A procession of three hundred young men dragging a trolleyful of ladies. |
| 1895 Pop. Sci. Monthly Apr. 751 Every species of tramway..becomes *trolleyized. |
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trolley dolly n. colloq. (a) U.S. (
app.) a female taxi driver (
rare);
(b) chiefly
Brit. and
Austral., a flight attendant,
esp. a female one.
| 1951 Gaz. & Bull. (Williamsport, Pa.) 3 May 13/3 They used to call us *trolley dollies. 1990 Herald (Melbourne) (Nexis) 14 June He is a Qantas Trolley Dolly and they excel at spooning out the caviar. 2001 S. Armitage Little Green Man (2002) xxv. 155 When a plane bursts into flames on impact, where would we be without half a dozen make-up-encrusted trolley-dollies to prop us in the recovery position? |