Lorry and truck describe the same thing, a large motor vehicle for carrying heavy goods by road; the difference is regional, not one of meaning. British English favours lorry, while American English uses truck almost exclusively. If you are writing for a UK audience, lorry reads as the natural, everyday choice, with truck sounding slightly American by comparison.
The core difference
Lorry and truck refer to the same vehicle; lorry is the British term and truck is the American one, though truck is widely understood everywhere.
- lorry — the British word for a large goods vehicle: A lorry blocked the narrow lane while making a delivery.
- truck — a large motor vehicle for carrying goods, standard in American English: The delivery truck pulled up outside the warehouse.
- truck — also a verb, to move goods by truck: The company trucks its produce to markets across the state.
How to tell them apart
There is no difference in what the vehicle is, only in which side of the Atlantic is doing the talking. British speakers, signs and news reports say lorry; American ones say truck. Because British media exports so widely, and because British English itself has absorbed a lot of American vocabulary, truck is understood everywhere, but lorry still marks a sentence as British.
One extra wrinkle: truck can also be a verb, meaning to transport goods by truck, a use lorry does not share. So while the two nouns are interchangeable across dialects, only truck doubles as an action word.
