local. Also 9 lorrie, lurrie, larry. [Of obscure etymology; cf. dial. lurry to pull, drag.]
1. A long flat wagon without sides running on four low wheels. Also, a truck or wagon used on railways or tramways.
1838. Civil Engin. & Arch. Jrnl., I. 115/1. There was a luggage lorry … between the engine and carriages for passengers. Ibid., 145/1. A luggage train was perceived … with three lurries attached to it.
1851. Illustr. Catal. Gt. Exhib., 256. Liverpool town float, lorrie and coal cart.
1855. Mrs. Gaskell, North & S., vii. Great loaded lurries blocked up the not over-wide thoroughfares.
1863. P. Barry, Dockyard Econ., 255. The plates are conveyed from the furnaces to the rolls on long iron trucks or lurries. The wheels of the lurrie run in grooves.
1879. Jesse Fothergill, Probation, III. 179. Omnibuses, carts, and lorries were struggling in a ‘lock’ in the middle of the street.
1881. Daily News, 6 Sept., 2/2. The time-honoured ‘lorry,’ or open cart, indigenous to Liverpool.
1882. Ogilvie, Larry, a coal truck on a railway;… a lorry.
1900. Engineering Mag., XIX. 764/1. Greater interest … now seems to center in the lorry, or automobile wagon for heavy duty.
2. Mining. A running bridge over a pit.
1883. Gresley, Gloss. Coal Mining, Lorry (Yorkshire), a running bridge over a sinking pit top upon which the bowk is placed after it is brought up for emptying. Ibid., Lurry,… a movable platform on wheels, the top of which is made on a level with the bank or surface. It is run over the mouth of a pit-shaft for a bowk to be lowered down upon when reaching the pit top.
3. Comb., as lorry-man, -wheel.
1880. Daily News, 6 Oct., 6/4. A girl was blown under a lorry wheel.
1888. Pall Mall Gaz., 23 Jan., 10/2. A railway lorryman.
