tanker truck
7
3.3
- noun
- /ˈtæŋkər trʌk/
:
camión cisterna
- Behind it, the tanker truck brakes hard, shuddering and groaning, trying to stop.
Examples
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Mulder, they haul oil in tanker trucks.
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They haul gas in tanker trucks.
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The tanker truck passed beneath the intersection and out of the rain.
Fiction book (1996) -
Something they excavated was brought there in tanker trucks.
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We already have your first shipment being loaded into the four tanker trucks.
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At some sites, tanker trucks are used to spray the sides of the windrows just before they are turned.
Academic text (1998) -
Water occasionally is added using tanker trucks to maintain optimum moisture content.
Academic text (1996) -
Colonias without water service often purchase drinking water, for example, from tanker trucks and store it in plastic or metal tanks.
Academic text (2003) -
The city has relied on a 3,500-gallon tanker truck to apply water to the windrows.
Academic text (1998) -
The city uses a tanker truck to deliver fresh water to areas affected by drought.
Synonyms
30
3.1
A large road vehicle that carries liquids like milk or fuel
1
3.4
A large vehicle with a tank that carries liquids or gases on roads
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly built from the constituents: 'tanker' denotes a vehicle with a tank and 'truck' denotes a large cargo vehicle, so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer a large truck designed to carry liquids or bulk in a tank. This noun+noun compounding is a common, compositional pattern cross-linguistically, making the expression immediately understandable.
Etymology
Tanker truck comes from the simple image of a big tanker, a metal tank for liquids, sitting on a truck. So it means 'a large vehicle that carries liquids or gases by road'.