trunk line


noun
  1. a major long-distance transportation line.

Origin of trunk line

1
First recorded in 1850–55

Words Nearby trunk line

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use trunk line in a sentence

  • In the fifties plans had been made for a main trunk line to run from Halifax to the Detroit River.

    The Canadian Dominion | Oscar D. Skelton
  • At Vicenza the highroad is joined by another trunk-line from Padua, 32 kilometres to the southwest.

  • A second later he was speaking with the man who had actually witnessed the cutting of the trunk line.

    The Invasion | William Le Queux
  • Even as late as 1882, over four-fifths of the eastbound trunk line traffic originated not further west than Illinois.

  • In 1876 the first attempt at a systematic scheme of rate adjustment between competing localities was made in trunk line territory.

British Dictionary definitions for trunk line

trunk line

noun
  1. a direct link between two telephone exchanges or switchboards that are a considerable distance apart

  2. the main route or routes on a railway

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012