Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To make a slow or arduous journey.
  • intransitive verb To journey on foot, especially to hike through mountainous areas.
  • intransitive verb South African To travel by ox wagon.
  • noun A journey or leg of a journey, especially when slow or difficult.
  • noun South African A journey by ox wagon, especially a migration such as that of the Boers from 1835 to 1837.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In South Africa:
  • To draw a vehicle, as oxen; pull a load along.
  • To travel by ox-wagon; hence, to travel in general; go from place to place; migrate.
  • noun In South Africa, the action of drawing, as a vehicle or a load; draft; traction; hence, a journey or migration; the distance between one stopping-place and the next; travel: as, that was short trek.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Chiefly South Africa The act of trekking; a drawing or a traveling; a journey; a migration.
  • noun the great emigration of Boers from Cape Colony which began in 1836, and resulted in the founding of the South African Republic and Orange Free State.
  • intransitive verb To draw or haul a load, as oxen.
  • intransitive verb Chiefly South Africa To travel, esp. by ox wagon; to go from place to place; to migrate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A slow or difficult journey.
  • noun South Africa A journey by ox wagon, especially the Boer migration of 1835-7.
  • verb intransitive To make a slow or arduous journey.
  • verb intransitive To journey on foot, especially to hike through mountainous areas.
  • verb South Africa To travel by ox wagon.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a journey by ox wagon (especially an organized migration by a group of settlers)
  • noun any long and difficult trip
  • verb journey on foot, especially in the mountains
  • verb make a long and difficult journey

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Afrikaans, to travel by ox wagon, from Dutch trekken, to travel, from Middle Dutch trecken, to pull.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Afrikaans trek.

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