Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (S.Afr.) prison.

1693		Government Records Fort St George, Madras n.p.: The justices [...] committed him to the Custody of the Talliars in the Trunke, but on the 21 September last, he made his escape by breaking through the Prison wall .
1798		Lady A. Barnard in Lindsay Lives of Lindsays (1849) III 475: The cow [...] had offended the laws by walking on the parade, the consequence of which was, like other caitiffs, she was put in the Tronck [DSAE].
1816		R.B. Fisher Importance of Cape of Good Hope 139: A master or mistress is forbid to punish a slave, but must send him to the trunk or jail for punishment.
1818		C.I. Latrobe Journal 77: The landdrost showed us the church and the prison, here called the tronk.
1834		‘Kaatje Kekkelbek or Life Among the Hottentots’ in D.C.F. Moodie (1888) II 555: Daar was Zaartje Zeekoegat, en ik, / En ouw Dirk Donderwetter, / Klaas Klauterberg, en Diedrick Dick, / All sent to Tronk together.
1835		Pringle & Conder Narrative of a Residence in S. Afr. 179: This tronk consisted of a single apartment, of about twenty feet long by twelve or fourteen broad.
1863		L. Duff Gordon 3 Jan. Letters from the Cape (1875) 255: He [...] insisted on taking him into custody and to the ‘Tronk’ (prison).
1879		A.A. Cunynghame My Command in S. Afr., 1874–1878 163: I sleep in tronk. Next day magistrate tell me, ‘You break bye-law; you go jail one month.’ I go jail; I come out. Durban no good, no good at all.
1882		F. Dixie In the Land of Misfortune 161: A line of small houses extending from this spot was riddled with bullets, and the whole appearance of the Tronk, or gaol, was that of disfigurement and ruin.
1892		B. Mitford ’Tween Snow and Fire 59: I’ll have the old schelm in the tronk by to-night.
1908		D. Blackburn Leaven 269: You have never been in tronk, have you?
1911		Blackburn & Caddell Secret Service in S. Afr. 76: Say you are guilty and get off with a month in tronk. It’s not bad in our tronk. No hard work, plenty of skoff.
1914		Truth (Melbourne) 21 Feb. 12/6: Some time after this, the Lobsters / Pops the two on ’em in the Trunk.
1929		N. Devitt Legal Atmospherics 173: The white-washed walls of the old ‘tronk,’ as the prison was called.
1941		N. Devitt Celebrated S. Afr. Crimes 50: In those days the gaol or ‘tronk’ stood where the library stands to-day.
1958		A. Jackson Trader on Veld 27: Ours was a small police station, with a ‘Tronk.’.
1970		H. Kuper Witch in my Heart IV i: How did you like your taste of tronk?
1973		P. Driscoll Wilby Conspiracy (1991) 9: The Kliptronk, the maximum-security block.
2010		Mail and Guardian (Johannesburg) 12 Mar. 🌐 Surely between his income scandal [...] and hate speech, there’s enough to ensure he spends time in the tronk?
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 242: ‘A genuine doctor. Genuinely struck off, served his time in tronk’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1977

D. Muller Whitey 35: To steal a chicken is nothing. To steal a bottle of brandy from a bar is tronk business.