trunkyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[trunk 词源字典]
trunk: [15] Trunk came via Old French tronc from Latin truncus (source also of English trench and truncate). This denoted ‘something with its protruding parts torn off’, hence ‘something regarded separately from its protruding parts’ – the stem of a tree without its branches, or a body without its limbs. The application of the English word to an ‘elephant’s proboscis’, which dates from the 16th century, apparently arose from some confusion with trump ‘trumpet’.
=> trench, truncate[trunk etymology, trunk origin, 英语词源]
trunk (n.2)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
"elephant's snout," 1560s, apparently from trunk (n.1), perhaps from confusion with trump (n.2), short for trumpet.
trunk (n.1)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
mid-15c., "box, case," from Old French tronc "alms box in a church," also "trunk of a tree, trunk of the human body, wooden block" (12c.), from Latin truncus "trunk of a tree, trunk of the body," of uncertain origin, perhaps originally "mutilated, cut off." The meaning "box, case" is likely to be from the notion of the body as the "case" of the organs. English acquired the "main stem of a tree" and "torso of the body" senses from Old French in late 15c. The sense of "luggage compartment of a motor vehicle" is from 1930. Railroad trunk line is attested from 1843; telephone version is from 1889.