Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A streetcar.
- noun A device that collects electric current from an underground conductor, an overhead wire, or a third rail and transmits it to the motor of an electric vehicle.
- noun A small truck or car operating on a track and used in a mine, quarry, or factory for conveying materials.
- noun A wheeled carriage, cage, or basket that is suspended from and travels on an overhead track.
- noun Chiefly British A cart.
- transitive & intransitive verb To convey (passengers) or travel by trolley.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Hence, a street-railway car propelled electrically by current taken by a trolley from a conductor.
- noun A hand-car used on the rails by workmen on a railroad.
- noun A narrow cart used by coster-mongers, and pushed by hand or drawn by a donkey. Also
troll . - noun A small truck or car for running on tracks in a rolling-mill or furnace. It is used to move heavy materials, and can be used as a tip-car.
- noun In Eng. lace-making, lace the pattern of which is outlined with a thicker thread, or a flat narrow border made up of several such threads. The ground is usually a double ground, showing hexagonal and triangular meshes.
- noun A metallic roller or pulley arranged to travel over, upon, and in contact with an electric conductor suspended overhead, and connected with a flexible conductor or a trolley-pole for conveying the current into the motor circuit on an electric car, as in many electric street-railways.
- To convey by a trolley, as by a truck or car running upon a rail and driven mechanically or electrically.
- To ride in an electrically-propelled car using the trolley system to transmit current to the motors.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun engraving, engraving, engraving A form of truck which can be tilted, for carrying railroad materials, or the like.
- noun engraving A narrow cart that is pushed by hand or drawn by an animal.
- noun (Mach.) A truck from which the load is suspended in some kinds of cranes.
- noun (Electric Railway) A truck which travels along the fixed conductors, and forms a means of connection between them and a railway car.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun New Zealand, UK A
cart orshopping cart . - noun UK A
hand truck . - noun UK A soapbox car.
- noun UK A
gurney . - noun A single-pole device for collecting electrical current from an overhead electical line usually for a
streetcar . - noun US A
streetcar or a system of streetcars. - noun US, colloquial A
light rail system or a train on such a system. - verb To bring to by trolley.
- verb To use a trolley vehicle to go from one place to another.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a wheeled vehicle that runs on rails and is propelled by electricity
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The ads were designed by the New York ad agency DeVito/Verdi, which vetoed one idea as too crass: This trolley is a lot like your mother.
Trolley Conductors Do Not Appreciate Being Told They Have "A Face Like A Halibut" - The Consumerist 2008
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Secondly, because the trolley is a rail-guided vehicle -- it doesn't steer, therefore it doesn't swerve, and, more to the point, it doesn't wander across several lanes of traffic to argue with another vehicle.
They don't swerve, you know thryn 2007
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Second, if a trolley is again headed for those five people (with no alternate track), should you push a fat man in the way of the trolley, killing him, but derailing the car and again saving the five?
The Starry Heavens Above and the Moral Law Within (the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex) 2006
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Second, if a trolley is again headed for those five people (with no alternate track), should you push a fat man in the way of the trolley, killing him, but derailing the car and again saving the five?
The Starry Heavens Above and the Moral Law Within (the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex) 2006
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Whether locals want to go to work, to the shop, out hunting, to visit relatives in the next village or simply go for a ride, the trolley is the easiest and often only means of transport ...
Boing Boing: November 10, 2002 - November 16, 2002 Archives 2002
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The first and most obvious contribution of Foot's trolley is that it raises new questions and suggests that we do not have an adequate theory of moral judgements.
Trolleyology and morals Andrew Brown 2010
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In fact, the trolley is not a forgone conclusion, but it is in the eyes of the Planners.
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First, if a trolley is heading down a track on a path to kill five people, should you flip a switch that will place it on an alternate track, where it will kill only one?
The Starry Heavens Above and the Moral Law Within (the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex) 2006
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First, if a trolley is heading down a track on a path to kill five people, should you flip a switch that will place it on an alternate track, where it will kill only one?
The Starry Heavens Above and the Moral Law Within (the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex) 2006
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I said "I think those are for the staff only" because indeed, the things we call trolley's in Canada ARE for staff only for hauling out large retail items like TVs and furniture.
dailycomic Diary Entry dailycomic 2008
arcuate commented on the word trolley
in the UK, trolley is the name given to what americans would call a shopping cart.
April 8, 2008
ruzuzu commented on the word trolley
"In Eng. lace-making, lace the pattern of which is outlined with a thicker thread, or a flat narrow border made up of several such threads. The ground is usually a double ground, showing hexagonal and triangular meshes." --Cent. Dict.
May 4, 2011