Truss

History in a word. The twists and turns in the journey of a word are fascinating. The Shaetlan word truss means '(useless) odds and ends; scraps; scrapings; rubbish'. It is Shetland specific and a direct descendant of Old Norse tros 'brushwood; half rotten twigs; dry twigs and wood splinter; etc'. The word is still found in Swedish as tross 'rubbish, refuse, etc' and NyNo. as tros 'half rotten twigs; dry twigs and wood splinter; etc', like in the saying

Der er tros i alle skogar ('There are inferior people everywhere')

The origin of the word is obscure but might come from Proto-Germanic *trusan, which itself derives from *trewan, which in turn derives from Proto-Indo-European *deru-/*drū- 'tree, wood'. So the semantic journey of truss has gone from hard wood to useless rubbish.

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Source for the Nynorsk quote: https://ordbokene.no/nn/81552