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When you’re first starting out in the truck business, it can be confusing trying to sort out all of the truck-world lingo, such as, “What is the difference between a truck and a tractor?” A truck can refer to any number of larger vehicles that require a commercial driver’s license (CDL) to drive. A tractor is one type of truck that is capable of carrying heavier loads than a regular (or “straight”) truck.

There are so many words in the truck business that seem at first to mean the same thing — semi-truck, tractor-trailer, 18 wheeler, semitrailer — that it’s natural to feel overwhelmed by all these terms that truckers use on a regular basis.

Luckily, once you have started immersing yourself in the world of truck driving, it becomes easier to puzzle all these terms out. Before you know it, you’ll be tossing out tractor truck lingo without thinking about it twice!

Until you get to this expert level, we’re here to help you sort out all these truck words and what they actually mean.

Trucks and Tractors: What Do the Words Mean?

As you’re trying to sort out all these different words, it can be helpful to take a look at what the words themselves actually mean, both in the truck driving world and beyond.

So before we enter our mini online truck school to learn the difference between a truck and a tractor, let’s take it back a step further and go to vocabulary school first.

Truck: Defined

In general, when people say truck, they are referring to the kinds of trucks that we teach you to drive at TDI. However, the word “truck” has been around for a very long time — longer even than the invention of cars!

Before automobiles were invented, the word “truck” simply referred to any wheeled structure used to support and carry heavy things from one place to another. So, years and years ago, a “truck” might have meant anything from a wheelbarrow to a horse-drawn cart.

Tractor: Defined

As you probably know, a tractor is a term used in the truck driving world and in the farm world. On a farm, a tractor is used for things such as plowing or harvesting fields. There are also tractors in the world of airplanes.

Obviously, none of these are what we mean by the word tractor when we use it to refer to a truck. So how can this one word be used to describe such very different vehicles?

The word “tractor” also originated before motor vehicles existed. It meant simply a device capable of pulling heavy things.