Meaning & use
lorry
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Meaning
nouncountableBritish
A large road vehicle built to carry goods, cargo, or heavy loads from place to place.
Grammar: Plural lorries; a normal countable noun: a lorry full of bricks.
Patterns
- a lorry full of something
- drive a lorry
A lorry carrying fruit blocked the narrow road.
He has driven a lorry across Europe for ten years.
The lorry reversed slowly into the loading bay.
Word forms
| plural | lorries |
|---|
Common combinations
- lorry driver
- The lorry driver stopped for coffee at the services.
- articulated lorry
- An articulated lorry broke down on the bridge.
- lorry park
- The lorry park near the port was full.
- load a lorry
- They loaded the lorry with furniture.
- fall off the back of a lorry
- The seller joked that the stereo had fallen off the back of a lorry.
- heavy goods lorry
- Heavy goods lorries are banned from the village.
Synonyms and how they differ
- truck
- Truck is the standard American word for the vehicle, and in Britain it often means a smaller vehicle or a rail wagon.
- van
- A van is smaller and enclosed, used for light deliveries, whereas a lorry carries heavy loads.
- HGV
- HGV is the British official abbreviation for a heavy goods vehicle and sounds technical or legal compared with lorry.
- semi
- Semi is the American informal word for a large tractor-trailer, much like a British articulated lorry.
Word family
- lorry driver noun
- a person who drives a lorry for a living
- lorryload noun
- the amount a lorry can carry
- lorries noun
- the plural form
Commonly confused: lorry or truck? lorry or laurie?
lorry vs truck
Truck is the American word for what Britons call a lorry; do not use it for a large goods vehicle in British English unless writing for an American audience.
lorry vs laurie
Laurie is a personal name and shares the sound but is not a vehicle.
Practice
In British English, what would you call a large vehicle carrying goods on the motorway?
Choose one answer.
Lorry is the British word for a large goods vehicle. The other words name different kinds of transport.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “lorry”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.