A Lorry is to the British what a truck is to an American. It came into usage in the early 1900s. I consulted the British Dictionary for this one:
British Dictionary definitions for lorry
1.a large motor vehicle designed to carry heavy loads, esp one with a flat platform US and Canadian name truck See also articulated vehicle
2. (Brit, informal) off the back of a lorry, a phrase used humorously to imply that something has been dishonestly acquired: it fell off the back of a lorry
3. any of various vehicles with a flat load-carrying surface, esp one designed to run on rails
Word Origin: perhaps related to northern English dialect lurry to pull, tug
[“lorry”. Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. 11 Feb. 2016. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lorry>]
The Chart above shows the growth and decline in usage of the word, “lorry” as compared with that of “truck.”
[I was excited to research this post as it introduced me to the Ngram. I’ve been playing around with it ever since.]
Making Life an Art 
In my childhood we used to call it a lorry dont remember when we switched to truck…
Really? I don’t know any British who call them trucks…
I am Indian not British, so I guess it must have been a throwback from the older colonial times and now we are all Americanized! I remember many of as children used to mispronounce them as ‘rollies’ 🙂
Dahlia, that’s really funny about the “rollies” !
Lorry are vintage now .
Nice one .
@dixita011 from
Cafenined words
So it would seem, but people still call them “lorries” here
Yes ,they are grand .
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Annette
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Thanks for the follow, Annette! I’ve just been by your place as well!
We use the term “lorry” here more often than “trucks”. The word truck seems fancier 🙂