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Weil es irgendwo unterwegs vom Laster gefallen sein soll.

They are looking for a certain object, and there is no mention of a lorry in previous contexts. Which leads me to think that the sentence does not have a literal meaning.

In English, the expression "something fell off the truck" means "something was stolen". I wonder if this is a German equivalent of this expression?

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  • The part irgendwo unterwegs makes me thinking, it is the literal meaning in this case. In the figuratively meaning, I would not expect such a detail.
    – knut
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 23:03
  • @knut Hi. There has so far been no mention of someone being on their way to somewhere, either. I agree: the part "irgendwo unterwegs" seems a bit too descriptive for the entire sentence to be interpreted figuratively.
    – Con-gras-tue-les-chiens
    Commented Apr 8, 2017 at 8:57

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Obviously, it can have a literal meaning. It apparently happens from time to time that things fall off trucks.

In most cases, however, the expression means the exact same thing as in English.

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