fall off the back of a lorry
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to be obtained illegally or by chance
Literally: fall from the rear of a truck
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
In terms of excuses, the jury was told, it was second only to the old chestnut that ‘ it fell off the back of a lorry’.
What they do fall off the back of a lorry?
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “fall off the back of a lorry” mean?
to be obtained illegally or by chance Literally: fall from the rear of a truck
Is “fall off the back of a lorry” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.