Definition of truss

• n. - A bundle; a package; as, a truss of grass.
• n. - A padded jacket or dress worn under armor, to protect the body from the effects of friction; also, a part of a woman's dress; a stomacher.
• n. - A bandage or apparatus used in cases of hernia, to keep up the reduced parts and hinder further protrusion, and for other purposes.
• n. - A tuft of flowers formed at the top of the main stalk, or stem, of certain plants.
• n. - The rope or iron used to keep the center of a yard to the mast.
• n. - An assemblage of members of wood or metal, supported at two points, and arranged to transmit pressure vertically to those points, with the least possible strain across the length of any member. Architectural trusses when left visible, as in open timber roofs, often contain members not needed for construction, or are built with greater massiveness than is requisite, or are composed in unscientific ways in accordance with the exigencies of style.
• n. - To bind or pack close; to make into a truss.
• n. - To take fast hold of; to seize and hold firmly; to pounce upon.
• n. - To strengthen or stiffen, as a beam or girder, by means of a brace or braces.
• n. - To skewer; to make fast, as the wings of a fowl to the body in cooking it.
• n. - To execute by hanging; to hang; -- usually with up.