limousine

Borrowed from French limousine, from region Limousin, originally an adjective referring to the city Limoges, from Latin Lemovices (adjective Lemovicīnus), name of a Gaulish tribe in central France, most likely a reference to their elm bows and spears, of same ultimate origin as elm.

An automobile for transportation to or from an airport, including sedans, vans, and buses.


abra

From Emirati Gulf Arabic عَبْرَة (ʕabra).


Jeep

From GP, standing for "general purpose".

A vehicle (of a particular brand) suitable for rough terrain.


beater

From Middle English beter, betere, bettere, from Old English bēatere (“a beater; boxer, fighter; champion”), equivalent to beat + -er. Related to beetle (“a type of mallet”).

inh

In the sport Quidditch or Muggle quidditch, a player a who attempts to hit the opposing team's players with bludgers and to block the bludgers from hitting their own team's players.


hooter

Suddenly, far down and beyond the toun there came a screech as the morning grew, a screech like an hungered beast in pain. The hooters were blowing in the Segget Mills.

1933, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Cloud Howe, page 34:

When the right-away was given, Driver Gibson would give a sonorous blast on Cardean's deep-toned hooter, and amid a flurry of swirling steam the train would move majestically out, with nearly half the city of Carlisle—or so it would appear—as onlookers on the platform.

1945 May and June, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 152:

A chime whistle, presented to the L.M.S.R. by American model railway enthusiasts in 1939, is installed now as a works hooter at Crewe Works, as its height precludes its use on a British locomotive.

1946 September and October, “Notes and News: Locomotive Whistle Gift”, in Railway Magazine, page 322:

(British) A siren or steam whistle, especially one in a factory and used to indicate the beginning or the end of a working day or shift.


monitor

From Latin monitor (“warner”), from perfect passive participle monitus (“warning”), from verb monere (“to warn, admonish, remind”). Warship sense is from USS Monitor, the first ship of this type.

The information flashed up on the monitor.

(computing) A device similar to a television set used as to give a graphical display of the output from a computer.

(nautical) A relatively small armored warship with only one or two turrets (but often carrying unusually large guns for a warship of its size), usually designed for shore bombardment or riverine warfare rather than open-ocean combat. [from 1862]


cabriolet

Of late years, cabriolets, and English stanhopes, and tilburys, have been introduced into St. Petersburgh; but the real national carriage for the town is the Droshky.

1829, Augustus Bozzi Granville, St. Petersburgh, a journal of travels to and from that capital:

"I think," said Isabella, startling Louisa, who had been watching the cabriolet down the street, "that Lady Penrhyn might have asked you to go with mamma."

1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 72:

(originally) A light two- or four-wheeled carriage with a folding top, pulled by a single horse.

кабриолет

a light carriage with a folding top, pulled by a single horse


brett

(archaic) A britchka; a kind of horse-drawn carriage.


odometer

/oʊˈdɑːmətɚ/

From French odomètre, from Ancient Greek ὁδός (hodós, “road, path, way”) + μέτρον (métron, “measure”) (equivalent to + -meter).

uder

A wheel used by surveyors, which registers distance traveled.


taxi

→ Burmese: တက္ကစီ (takka.ci)

→ Cantonese: 的士 (dik¹ si⁶⁻²)

→ Mandarin: 的士 (dīshì, díshì)

→ Mandarin: 德士 (déshì)

→ Irish: tacsaí

desctree

→ Japanese: タクシー (takushī)
→ Hakka: 他庫西 /他库西 (thà-khu-sí)
→ Min Nan: tha-khú-sih

→ Korean: 택시 (taeksi)

→ Malay: teksi

→ Welsh: tacsi

→ Yiddish: טאַקסי (taksi)

→ Yoruba: takisí; tasín

Shortened from taximeter cab, taximeter (“automatic meter that records distance and fare”) from French taximètre, from German Taxameter (whence also English taxameter), coined from Medieval Latin taxa (“tax, charge”). More at tax, task.
The aviation sense originally derived for a slang term for training aircraft used for practicing ground operations, which were said to drive around the airfield like a taxicab, and subsequently applied to all aircraft ground movements.

"Taxi," he called. And when one pulled up to the curb with screeching brakes he ordered, "The nearest restaurant."

1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 12:

[Sobbing uncontrollably] I thought I could make it work between us because you looked a bit like a man.
TAXI!

2007 August 24, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 2, Episode 1

A vehicle that may be hired for single journeys by members of the public, particularly one with an automated meter to calculate the fare.

ભાડૂતી ગાડી

bhāḍūtī gāḍī

yellow cab

licensed taxis in NYC & some other locations

Uber

taxi-style services hired through a ridesharing app


Yamato

From Japanese 大和 (Yamato), itself of uncertain derivation, but likely related to 山 (yama, “mountains”). See Proto-Japonic *yamatə.

One of a class of battleships used by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War.


trireme

From Latin trirēmis, from tri- + rēmus (“oar”).

(history, nautical, archaic) A galley with three banks of oars, one above the other, used mainly as a warship.


litter

en-noun

litter (countable and uncountable, plural litters)

From Middle English litere, lytere, &c., from Anglo-Norman litere, litiere, &c., from Old French litiere (“bedding; bed of loose straw; litter”), from Late Latin lectuāria (“bedding; blankets”), from Latin lectus (“bed; couch”) + -āria (“forming related nouns”), from Proto-Italic *lektos (“[thing] lain upon”), from *leɣō (“to lie down”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ-. Cognate with French lit and litière.

der

Reading and Leeds Festivals
Saint George Hare
litter
litter (disambiguation)

枯枝落叶层

layer of dead leaves and other organic matter

andor

litter used for Portuguese Catholic processions

takhtrawan

enclosed Middle Eastern & Indian animal-borne litters or open Persian & Indian human-borne mobile thrones

chowpaul

open Indian litter with arched support pole

nalki

princely Indian litter borne by many men; a groom's litter

mikoshi

ceremonial Japanese litter for Shinto idols

He ordeyned lyttyers for the wounded knyghtes.

c. 1480, Thomas Malory, chapter XIX, in Morte d'Arthur:

(countable) A mobile bed or couch transported upon or suspended from poles placed over human shoulders or animal backs.

(medicine, countable) Synonym of stretcher, such a vehicle used for transporting the sick and injured, inclusive of designs carried in the hand.

When they went out, they sat in litters, which were curtained.

1922, Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization, page 219:

"The Chengtu revolutionaries were fantastically colourful in the Szechwanese manner—they costumed themselves as heroes of the stage and their energies were chiefly occupied in tying ropes across the main streets so that when Imperial officials rode by in their litters they would have to get down and crawl under, losing face.

1942 March, “Notes and News: Monument to a Stillborn Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 88:

(countable, loosely) The general category of all such similar vehicles, inclusive of sedan chairs, hammock litters, and the like.

مِحَفَّة

platform designed to carry a person or a load — see also sedan chair, palanquin

Change the cat litter fer chrissakes. This place reeks.

(uncountable) Fuller's earth, clay pellets, wood chips, or other similar loose absorbent materials used for the waste of pet animals.


axle

From Middle English axil, in turn a combination of Old English eax and Old Norse ǫxull.

Axle in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

the Sun’s axle


lurker

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-lurker.wav

It troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the stairs, on that night of all nights in the year, and I asked the watchman, on the chance of eliciting some hopeful explanation as I handed him a dram at the door, whether he had admitted at his gate any gentleman who had perceptibly been dining out?

1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XL, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 3:


motorcar

→ Maori: motokā

→ Swahili: motokaa

→ Luo: mtoka, mtokaa

(rail transport, US) A self-propelled railway vehicle.


autobus

en-noun

autobus (plural autobuses or autobusses)

From auto- (prefix meaning ‘self’, in the sense of being self-propelled) + bus. Sense 2 (“large group of cyclists who have fallen behind the peloton”) is borrowed from French autobus.

prefix

(road transport, dated) A bus that is a motor vehicle, as opposed to earlier horse-drawn buses.


barge

From Middle English barge, borrowed from Old French barge (“boat”), from Vulgar Latin *barga, a variant of Late Latin barca, a regular syncope of Vulgar Latin *barica, from Classical Latin bāris, from Ancient Greek βᾶρις (bâris, “Egyptian boat”), from Coptic ⲃⲁⲁⲣⲉ (baare, “small boat”), from Demotic br, from Egyptian bꜣjrb-bA-A-y:r*Z1-P1 (“transport ship”). Doublet of bark, barque and baris.

der

(nautical) A large flat-bottomed towed or self-propelled boat used mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods or bulk cargo.

aak

flat-bottomed bulk carrier mainly for inland waters


technical

en-noun

technical (countable and uncountable, plural technicals)

From Late Latin technicus + -al, from Ancient Greek τεχνικός (tekhnikós), from τέχνη (tékhnē, “skill”).

“Individuals or groups of people who have trucks mounted with antiaircraft guns, known as ‘technicals,’ should bring those battlewagons to Mogadishu’s old port,” he said.

2007 January 2, Jeffrey Gettleman, “After 15 Years, Someone’s in Charge in Somalia, if Barely”, in New York Times:

A pickup truck with a gun mounted on it.

(video games) A special move in certain fighting games that cancels out the effect of an opponent's attack.

technical school
technical school#English

technical rehearsal
technical rehearsal#English

(informal, countable, uncountable) Short for technical rehearsal.


keel

From Middle English kele, from Old Norse kjǫlr, itself from Proto-Germanic *keluz, of uncertain origin. Displaced Old English ċēol from a related root. Distantly related to kile.

I hear the noise about thy keel;
I hear the bell struck in the night:
I see the cabin-window bright;
I see the sailor at the wheel.

1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto X:

(nautical) A large beam along the underside of a ship’s hull from bow to stern.

kallumë

(nautical) A rigid, flat piece of material anchored to the lowest part of the hull of a ship to give it greater control and stability.

кил

rigid flat piece of material giving a ship greater control and stability

The ladies remained at the house, while the men walked to the staith on the [River] Wear, and were shown the process of unloading the wagons into the keels by means of the coal-drop.

1948 January and February, “Notes and News: Duke of Wellington's Early Railway Journey”, in Railway Magazine, page 56:

(nautical) A type of flat-bottomed boat.


car carrier

A special ship that transports cars in a garage with ambient control and ventilation.

A special railroad car for transporting automobiles.

A special semi-trailer for transporting automobiles.


camper

The moonshiners are now only a memory, but the sunrisers have grown into many hundreds, with trailers and campers pulling into Red Rock Canyon days early for a good parking spot.

2003, Roberta Martin Starry, Gold Gamble, page 156:

A motor vehicle with a rear compartment for living and sleeping in.

first-person shooting
first-person shooter

(video games) A person who stays in one spot during a first-person shooting game, to guard an item etc.

kämppäri

video games: person who stays in one spot


butt

From Middle English but, butte (“goal, mark, butt of land”), from Old English byt, bytt (“small piece of land”) and *butt (attested in diminutive Old English buttuc (“end, small piece of land”) > English buttock), from Proto-West Germanic *butt, from Proto-Germanic *buttaz (“end, piece”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰnós (“bottom”), later thematic variant of Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn ~ *bʰudʰn-, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“deep”). Cognate with Norwegian butt (“stump, block”), Icelandic bútur (“piece, fragment”), Low German butt (“blunt, clumsy”). Influenced by Old French but, butte (“but, mark”), ultimately from the same Germanic source. Compare also Albanian bythë (“buttocks”), Ancient Greek πυθμήν (puthmḗn, “bottom of vessel”), Latin fundus (“bottom”) and Sanskrit बुध्न (budhná, “bottom”), from the same Proto-Indo-European root. Related to bottom, boot.
 PIE word
 *bʰudʰmḗn.

приклад

larger or thicker end of anything; blunt end

perä

end of something, often distinguished from other end

[…] when the sun gets round to the butt of the wind, the change, if any is coming, is then to be expected.

1865, Arthur Kavanagh, The Cruise of the R.Y.S. Eva, page 62:

[…] 'the butt' of the wind, the wind will increase or continue. When the sky is light and clear in 'the butt' of the wind, the wind will die away. A strong wind which changes round with the sun E to S to W (clockwise) will die away, and[…]

2013 April 16, G. W. Maunsell, The Fisherman's Vade Mecum - A Compendium of Precepts, Counsel, Knowledge and Experience in Most Matters Pertaining to Fishing for Trout, Sea Trout, S, Read Books Ltd, →ISBN:

(countable, generally) An end of something, often distinguished in some way from the other end.

(dialect or nautical, possibly dated) The direction from which the wind blows.


collier

From Middle English colier (“charcoal burner”), from col (“coal”).

inh

Near-synonyms: coalminer, coalworker; coalowner, mineowner

en:person who produces or distributes coals of any type

en:person who produces or distributes fossil coal

A person in the business or occupation of producing or distributing coal (any of several types of carbon fuel).

A person who produces (e.g., digs, mines, gathers) or sells coal (the fossil fuel type), or transports it from underground, from the soil, or from a seashore.

By 1830, more than two million tons of coal a year, principally from the North East, arrived in London by coastal collier, and that figure reached three million tons by the 1840s.

2021 December 1, Nigel Harris, “St Pancras and King's Cross: 1947”, in RAIL, number 945, page 42:

(nautical) A vessel carrying a bulk cargo of coal.


velocipede

Borrowed from French vélocipède, from Latin velox (“swift”) + pes (“foot”).

(archaic) Any three- or four-wheeled machine driven by foot or hand levers to the rear or front axle.

дрезина

(archaic) generic term for three- and four-wheeled machines driven by hand or foot levers


rickshaw

→ Italian: risciò

desc

→ German: Rikscha (or directly from Japanese)

Borrowed from Japanese 力(りき)車(しゃ) (rikisha), a clipping of 人(じん)力(りき)車(しゃ) (jinrikisha), from Middle Chinese 人力 (nyin lik, “human power”) + 車 (t͡ʃʰæ, “cart”) (compare Mandarin 人力車 /人力车 (rénlìchē)).

com

A two-wheeled carriage pulled along by a person.


jinriksha

/ˌd͡ʒɪnˈɹɪk.ʃə/

Borrowed from Japanese 人力車 (じんりきしゃ, jinrikisha).

There are no roads outside the villages in northern Yezo, no jinriksha,—those most fascinating man-power carriages,—no kago, or swinging cars, and no side-saddles...

1898 July, Mabel Loomis Todd, "In Aino-land", The Century Illustrated Montly Magazine, Vol. LVI, No. 3, p. 346

In the Transportation Buildin' is a map one hundred feet long, showing the transportation facilities of the Empire, a perfect network of railways and telegraphand telephone wires, showin' they have other ways of gettin' 'round there besides man-carts and jinrikshas, yes, indeed!

1904, Marietta Holley, Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition, →ISBN:


calash

(historical) Alternative form of calèche (“type of carriage with low wheels”)


araba

From Ottoman Turkish عربه (modern Turkish araba).

No one but a native of the luxurious East could ever have invented an araba, with its comfortable cushions, and its gaily painted roof, and gilded pillars. The prettiest are those of brown and gold, with rose-coloured draperies, through which the breeze flutters to your cheek as blandly as though it loved the tint that reminded it of the roses of the past season amid which it had wandered."

1836, Julia Pardoe, City of the Sultan; and Domestic Manners of the Turks:

I found the examination of these antiquities much less pleasant than to look at the many troops of children assembled on the plain to play; and to watch them as they were dragged about in little queer arobas, or painted carriages, which are there kept for hire.

1845, William Makepeace Thackeray, Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo:

There is, however, such a thing as an “araba,” a vehicle drawn by oxen, in which the wives of a rich man are sometimes dragged four or five miles over the grass by way of recreation. The carriage is rudely framed, but you recognise in the simple grandeur of its design a likeness to things majestic; in short, if your carpenter’s son were to make a “Lord Mayor’s coach” for little Amy, he would build a carriage very much in the style of a Turkish araba.

1898, Alexander William Kinglake, Eothen:

Whenever I mounted the araba, he would whip his horses to a sharp trot or canter for half a mile, and then at a word stop for me to get out.

1917, W.J. Childs, Across Asia Minor on Foot:

(historical) A horse-drawn carriage once used for transportation in pre-modern Turkey.


wheelie

Jim fell off his bike when he was trying to do a wheelie.

With them [bicycles], children can accomplish such unique and delightfully dangerous stunts as “wheelies”—that is, riding at a fast speed with the machine's front wheel raised completely above the ground.

1959, American Jurisprudence Proof of Facts, Annotated: […], volume 30, San Francisco, Calif.: Bancroft-Whitney; Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 647:

Bikes are pointing their noses in the air nowadays with the help of a new gadget called the Wheelie-Bar. By attaching the device to the rear of your cycle, you can tilt back on the hind wheel; wooden skate rollers at the end of the bar let you ride high, the way stock-car dragsters do.

1967 January, “PS Picture News: Drag Bike Rides High on Wheelie-Bars”, in Ernest V. Heyn, editor, The Popular Science Monthly, volume 190, number 1, New York, N.Y.: Popular Science Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 92:

In keeping with his overall emphasis on skill, [Doug] Domokos says his most difficult trick is one he performs on solid ground. During the show, you'll see him pull up the front wheel of his ATV [all-terrain vehicle], then step over the handlebars and continue the wheelie while seated on the headlight.

1985 January, “Staying Aloft: Domokos is Up for the Great American Shows Season”, in Greg Harrison, editor, American Motorcyclist: The Monthly Journal of the American Motorcyclist Association, volume 39, number 1, Westerville, Oh.: American Motorcyclist Association, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 18:

I learned how to let the clutch out slo-ow-ly so my tractor wouldn't pop a wheely and go hauling over backward.

2004, Muffy Mead-Ferro, “The World Isn’t Childproof”, in Confessions of a Slacker Mom, Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Lifelong, →ISBN:

The bikers pop wheelies and execute speedy figure eights along the busy street. Still, something more purposeful than joyriding would seem to be on their minds.

2018 February, Robert Draper, “They are Watching You—and Everything Else on the Planet: Technology and Our Increasing Demand for Security have Put Us All under Surveillance. Is Privacy Becoming just a Memory?”, in National Geographic, Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2018-06-14:

(informal) An action or stunt where a bicycle, motorcycle, or other vehicle is ridden for a short period while it is standing only on its rear wheel or wheels.

cavallet

action or stunt where a bicycle, etc., is ridden while standing only on its rear wheel or wheels


chopper

en-verb

chopper (third-person singular simple present choppers, present participle choppering, simple past and past participle choppered)

choppers (present singular third-person)
choppering (participle present)
choppered (participle past)
choppered (past)

From the onomatopoeia for the "chop-chop" sound emitted by the main rotor blades of the Bell 47 'OH-13 Sioux' "Angel of Mercy" helicopter, encountered by troops during the Korean War.

They lifted Catholics. Civil Rights guys, mostly. Low-level nationalists. Choppered them off to some interrogation centre outside Belfast.

2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 288:

(informal) To travel or transport by helicopter.


phaeton

It had been settled that Lorraine was to drive Emily in his phaeton. It is true the sun was full in her eyes, the wind high, and the dust, which is just mud in high spirits, flew round them in clouds; but Emily found her ride delightful.

1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 260:

...I saw the girls of Nob Hill on their way to school, kicking pebbles at each other and laughing; I saw young ladies coming home past curfew in their beaus' phaetons...

2004, Andrew Sean Greer, The Confessions of Max Tivoli, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 43:

(vehicles) a light four-wheeled open carriage drawn by four horses


balsa

en-noun

balsa (countable and uncountable, plural balsas)

→ Irish: balsa

Borrowed from Spanish balsa, from a pre-Roman substrate of Iberia, probably Basque [Term?] or Iberian [Term?]. Not related to balsam.

A raft or float, used principally on the Pacific coast of South America.


bandy

A carriage or cart used in India, especially one drawn by bullocks.


cowl

en-verb

cowl (third-person singular simple present cowls, present participle cowling, simple past and past participle cowled)

cowls (present singular third-person)
cowling (participle present)
cowled (participle past)
cowled (past)

From Middle English coule, from Old English cūle, from earlier cugele (“hood, cowl”), from Ecclesiastical Latin cuculla (“monk's cowl”), from Latin cucullus (“hood”), of uncertain origin. Doublet of cagoule.

der

COWL, scrape together. "Cowlin t'cinders up."

1865, William Stott Banks, Wakefield Words, page 17:


hoy

He sent to Germanie, straunge aid to reare,
 From whence eftsoones arriued here three hoyes
 Of Saxons, whom he for his safetie imployes.

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

Per packet per Hoy.

1590 May 31, George Carew, letter to William Cecil

The hoy went to London every week.

1779 July, William Cowper, letter to the Rev. William Unwin

The out-fit is not a trifle: no lady can be landed there, under respectable circumstances throughout, for less than five hundred pounds... [Visiting India] is not like a trip, per hoy, to Margate, where nothing but a well-lined purse is requisite...

1810, Thomas Williamson, The East India Vade-Mecum, pages 453-454:

Oh, sea-sickness! thou cream of miseries—thou ocean-purgatory!... how presumptuous would it be in me to essay a description of thee, when so many better qualified have failed in the attempt, from the early voyager per hoy to Margate and Ramsgate, to the bolder spirits of more recent times, who, leaving the pleasant sounds of Bow bells, recklessly brave the dangers of a transit to Calais and Boulogne!

1840 November, Francis John Bellew, The Asiatic Journal..., New Series, Vol. XXXIII, No. 131, p. 198

Alderman Johnson condemns the Reform Act, and is for going backward, in all things, to the good times. Punch humbly suggests that every man who votes for the Crab Alderman should be punished as follows:— The said voter never to be permitted to travel by rail, but to journey to York or elsewhere by the very slowest coach. Never to go to Margate by steamboat, but to take three days to the voyage, per hoy. Never to send a letter by penny-post, but to pay 10d. or 13d., as the case may be—the good old price of the good old times.

1847, “Vote for Alderman Johnson”, in Punch, volume XIII, page 40:

(nautical) A small coaster vessel, usually sloop-rigged, used in conveying passengers and goods, or as a tender to larger vessels in port.


jalopy

Unknown. Perhaps from Jalapa, Mexico (now Xalapa), to whose scrapyards used cars were often sent from New Orleans starting in the 1920s. First recorded written use in 1924.

Dean is the perfect guy for the road because he was actually born on the road, when his parents were passing through Salt Lake City in 1926, in a jalopy, on their way to Los Angeles.

1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 1, in On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC:

There's only a rough track and I doubt if that jalopy of yours will make it.

2003, Terrance Dicks, Barry Letts, chapter 22, in Deadly Reunion:

Through most of those early years of restless travel, he dragged his two children and his long-suffering wife, Maryann[…] behind him like tin cans tied to the bumper of a jalopy that no car dealer in his right mind would take in trade.

2009 November 20, Stephen King, “Raymond Carver’s Life and Stories”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(US, dated) An old, dilapidated or unpretentious automobile.

รถเก่าแก่

rt̄h kèā kæ̀

(US, dated, slang) A hip, cool, groovy automobile.


jigger

→ Catalan: gigre

From jig + -er (agent suffix). Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary suggests a possible link to Old High German gīga (“fiddle”).

(nautical, New England) A small fishing vessel, rigged like a yawl.


junker

Borrowed from German Junker, from Middle High German juncherre (“young lord; not yet knighted nobleman”). Compare younker.

Professors of philosophy and science carrying high the patriotic banner of Kultur and culture gloried in the system of compulsory, universal, military service, first made in Germany exulted in the degrading, vicious process of training by which the individual is hypnotized into submission to a brutal organization of military junkers, hallowed by the name of state and Fatherland, it was the darkest period in the history of mankind.

1919, Boris Sidis, The Source and Aim of Human Progress:

The dice are, however, weighted against them, so long as the present generation of Junkers and officials survives.

1921 October, Maxwell H. H. Macartney, “An Ex-Enemy in Berlin to-Day”, in The Atlantic:

A young German noble or squire, especially a member of the aristocratic party in Prussia, stereotyped with narrow-minded militaristic and authoritarian attitudes.


lugger

From lug + -er. Attested since the early 17th century.

An estimated 50 luggers were employed to bring gamblers to Reading.

2008, Ed Taggert, When the Rackets Reigned, page 187:

A person hired by a gambling establishment to locate potential customers and bring them in.


shay

A back-formation from chaise (originally from French), with the /z/ of that word taken as the plural ending -s.

The poſt-ſhay ſhall be at the door by ſix o'clock in the morning; and if Miſs Fanny does not get into it, vvhy I vvill, and ſo there's an end of the matter.

1766, George Colman, David Garrick, The Clandestine Marriage, a Comedy. […], London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […]; R[oberts] Baldwin, […]; R. Davis, […]; and T[homas] Davies, […], →OCLC, Act IV, scene i, page 57:

Master sent me over with the shay-cart, to carry your luggage up to the house. He’d ha’ sent some saddle-horses, but he thought you’d rather walk, being a cold day.

1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, chapter XXVIII, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC:


tipper

(UK) A goods vehicle with a tippable body, used for carrying loose materials such as gravel or rubble; a tipper truck, tipper lorry, or dump truck.


troika

From Russian тро́йка (trójka, “a group of three”).

A great writer of the last epoch, comparing Russia to a swift troika galloping to an unknown goal, exclaims 'Oh, troika, birdlike troika, who invented thee!' and adds, in proud ecstasy, that all the peoples of the world stand aside respectfully to make way for the recklessly galloping troika to pass.

1880, Constance Garnett, chapter VI, in The Brothers Karamazov, book XII, translation of original by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, page 787:

When Gogol wrote his great passage on the troika speeding across the steppes, he likened it to Russia itself, advancing across the earth.

1960, Lesley Blanch, The Sabres of Paradise: Conquest and Vengeance in the Caucasus, Tauris Parke Paperbacks, published 2006, →ISBN, page 145:

Travelling part of the way by rail and the remainder by troika, he reached Orenburg shortly before Christmas.

1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia, Oxford University Press, published 2001, →ISBN, page 367:

A Russian carriage drawn by a team of three horses abreast.


yawl

→ Portuguese: aiola, aiole, iole

Apparently from Low German and Middle Low German jolle, or Dutch jol, possibly ultimately from a Proto-Germanic derivative of Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewlos (“tube”), see also Lithuanian aulas, Norwegian aul, Hittite [script needed] (auli-, “tube-shaped organ in the neck”), Albanian hollë, Latin alvus.

cog

A small ship's boat, usually rowed by four or six oars.

The “Nellie,” a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 193:

A fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel with two masts, main and mizzen, the mizzen stepped abaft the rudder post.


laker

From lake (“body of water”) + -er (“inhabitant”) or + -er (relational suffix).

suffix

(nautical, Canada, US) A ship used on the Great Lakes.


barque

From Middle English barke (“boat”), borrowed from Middle French barque, itself borrowed from Italian barca or a Medieval Latin equivalent, from Late Latin barca, from Vulgar Latin barica, from Ancient Greek βᾶρις (bâris) 'Egyptian boat', from Coptic ⲃⲁⲁⲣⲉ (baare, “small boat”), from Demotic br, from Egyptian bꜣjr (“transport ship, type of fish”), b-bA-A-y:r*Z1-P1. Doublet of bark, barge and baris. Possibly cognate with Spanish barco.

der

bricbarca

sailing vessel, all masts but sternmost square-rigged


caper

A vessel formerly used by the Dutch; privateer.


caper

From Latin capparis, from Ancient Greek κάππαρις (kápparis).


dhow

I suppose I must have slept for seven or eight hours, getting the first real rest that I had had since the night before the loss of the dhow, for when I woke the sun was high in the heavens.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

Joshua continued preparing breakfast, Bijan returned to piloting the dhow offshore and Pourghasem returned to his watch.[…]Several dhows were on the water and some fishermen were already at work.

2001, David M Besaw, Joshua, Trafford Publishing, page 251:

The navy sometimes hired dhows for its patrols.[…]If a dhow was stopped, the slaves could not be counted on to make their presence known, having probably been told that the Europeans would kill them.

2003, Suzanne Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem, Rowman & Littlefield (AltaMira), page 78:

They took a dhow from Mombasa bound for Aden and planned to take a larger vessel to Suez and then overland to Cairo.

2011, J. W. Heldring, The Killing of Dr. Albrecht Roscher, Xlibris, page 109:

In contemporary Anglophone usage, the term ‘dhow’ has come to refer generically and exonymically to traditional wooden vessels of the western Indian Ocean, whatever their particular forms or emic classification.

2015, John P. Cooper, Dionisius A. Agius, Tom Collie, Faisal al-Naimi, “Boat and ship engravings at al-Zubārah, Qatar: the dāw exposed?”, in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, volume 45: Papers from the forty-eighth meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held at the British Museum, London, 25 to 27 July 2014 (2015), →ISSN, pages 35–47:

(nautical) A traditional sailing vessel used along the coasts of Arabia, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean, generally having a single mast and a lateen sail.


dolly

Welsh: doli

From doll + -y, from the given name Dorothy, originally applied either to a woman or female pet or to a children's toy, and expanded to refer to various types of contrivances or devices. The Online Etymology Dictionary, while considering the reason for applying it to such devices unobvious, compares how the names jack, jenny and jimmy are also applied to devices.

rattaat

term not specific to bridge construction

An unpowered vehicle (trailer) designed for connection to a tractor unit, truck or prime mover vehicle, with strong traction power.


freighter

(nautical) A vessel used mainly to carry freight; a cargo ship.


galley

en-noun

galley (plural galleys or (obsolete) gallies)

galleys (plural)
gallies (obsolete plural)

From Middle English galeie, from Old French galee, from Latin galea, from Byzantine Greek γάλεα (gálea) of unknown origin, probably from Ancient Greek γαλέη (galéē), a kind of a small fish, from γαλεός (galeós, “dog-fish or small shark”). Doublet of galea.

(nautical, historical) A long, slender ship propelled primarily by oars, whether having masts and sails or not; usually a rowed warship used in the Mediterranean from the 16th century until the modern era.

(nautical) One of the small boats carried by a man-of-war.

kaleeri

nautical: small boat carried by a man-of-war

(nautical) The cookroom or kitchen and cooking apparatus of a vessel or aircraft; sometimes on merchant vessels called the caboose.

камбуз

cooking room or kitchen and cooking apparatus of a vessel or aircraft


corvette

Unadapted borrowing from French corvette.

ubor

(nautical, historical) A flush-decked warship of the 17th-18th centuries having a single tier of guns; it ranked next below a frigate; – called in the United States navy a sloop of war.


grader

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-grader.wav

From grade + -er (agent noun suffix) or + -er (measurement suffix) (sense 4).

The blade-grader is a long steel-framed carriage under which is fixed a steel blade capable of being tilted at various angles: its principal use is in trimming cutting-slopes.

1943 September and October, “Railway Construction and Operation at War Department Depots”, in Railway Magazine, page 262:

A machine used in road maintenance, construction, and mining for leveling large surfaces.


hearse

From Middle English herse, hers, herce, from Old French herce, from Medieval Latin hercia, from Latin herpicem, hirpex; ultimately from Oscan 𐌇𐌉𐌓𐌐𐌖𐌔 (hirpus, “wolf”), a reference to the teeth, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰers- (“stiff, rigid, bristled”). The Oscan term is related to Latin hīrsūtus (“bristly, shaggy”), whence English hirsute. Doublet of herse (“kind of gate”).

der

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-hearse.wav

A framework of wood or metal placed over the coffin or tomb of a deceased person, and covered with a pall; also, a temporary canopy bearing wax lights and set up in a church, under which the coffin was placed during the funeral ceremonies.

Set down, set down your honourable load, / If honour may be shrouded in a hearse.

c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

A bier or handbarrow for conveying the dead to the grave.

катафа́лк

bier or handbarrow for carrying the dead

A carriage or vehicle specially adapted or used for transporting a dead person to the place of funeral or to the grave.


hearse

Alternative form of hearst (“A hind (female deer) in the second or third year of her age”)


ketch

→ Dutch: kits

From Middle English catche, from cacchen (“to catch”). For the modern form with /ɛ/, compare the pronunciation /kɛtʃ/ of catch.

[…] to finish her new Habit or Appearance, and make her Change compleat, he ordered her Sails to be alter’d; and as she sailed before with a Half-Sprit, like a Yacht, she sailed now with square Sail and Mizen Mast, like a Ketch; so that, in a Word, she was a perfect Cheat […]

1720, Daniel Defoe, Captain Singleton, London: J. Brotherton et al, page 313:

A fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel with two masts, main and mizzen, the mizzen being stepped forward of the rudder post.


scout

From Middle English scout, scoult, from Old French escoute (“action of listening”), verbal noun from escouter (“to listen, heed”), from Latin auscultō (“to listen”). The verb comes from the noun.

A member of any number of youth organizations belonging to the international scout movement, such as the Boy Scouts of America or Girl Scouts of the United States.

He has also been good enough to recommend to me many tradesmen who are ready to supply these articles in any quantities; each of whom has been here already a dozen times, cap in hand, and vowing that it is quite immaterial when I pay—which is very kind of them; but, with the highest respect for friend Perkins (my scout) and his obliging friends, I shall make some enquiries before "letting in" with any of them.

1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], chapter I, in Tom Brown at Oxford: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC:

(Oxford University, Harvard University, Yale University, historical) A domestic servant, generally male, who would attend (usually several) students in a variety of ways, including cleaning; generally equivalent to a gyp at Cambridge University or a skip at Trinity College, Dublin.

Oxford University; Harvard University; Yale University; Oxford University; Harvard University; Yale University

(historical, UK, up until 1920s) A fighter aircraft.


scout

From Middle English scoute, skoute (also schoute, shoute, schuyt), from Middle Low German schûte or Middle Dutch schute; or possibly from Old Norse skúta (“a small craft or cutter”).

So we took a scout, very much pleased with the manner and conversation of the passengers.

1660, Samuel Pepys, diary entry 18th May 1660:


scow

en-verb

scow (third-person singular simple present scows, present participle scowing, simple past and past participle scowed)

scows (present singular third-person)
scowing (participle present)
scowed (participle past)
scowed (past)


settee

A vessel with a very long, sharp prow, carrying two or three masts with lateen sails, used in the Mediterranean.


sled

From Middle English sledde, from Middle Dutch sledde or Middle Low German sledde (compare Dutch slee, slede, Low German Sleden), from Proto-Germanic *slidô (compare Saterland Frisian sliede, German Schlitten, Norwegian slede). Doublet of sleigh; also related to slide.

The child zoomed down the hill on his sled.

en:small light vehicle with runners and no draft animal

A small, light vehicle with runners, used recreationally, mostly by children, for sliding down snow-covered hills; no draft animal pulls it.

Coordinate term: sleigh (generally larger)

"Mush!" he yelled at the dogs pulling the sled.

en:vehicle with runners, often with draft animals

(chiefly Canada, US) A vehicle on runners, used for conveying loads over the snow or ice, and often pulled by sled dogs.

We saw them go by on their sleds this afternoon, headed toward their grandfather's quarter section.

(slang, chiefly Canada, US) A snowmobile.

He was a bit reckless and frankly we were nervous about riding with him in that big old sled of his, a Cadillac with a V-8.

That sled had manual drum brakes on all four corners.

(slang, chiefly Canada, US, figuratively) A car (automobile) or truck, usually called so with the implication of sledlike traits: heavy, low-slung, and prone to going fast but not braking or cornering particularly well.


sleigh

From Modern Dutch slee, from Middle Dutch slede, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *slidô. Doublet of sled and further related to slide.

Santa travels in a sleigh.

In 1958, it was reported that for "the fourth year in succession, staff of four South London stations have combined to decorate the booking hall at Peckham Rye station". They installed a nativity scene, models of Father Christmas, and a sleigh driven by huskies, and Christmas trees were placed around the station.

2023 December 27, David Turner, “Silent lines...”, in RAIL, number 999, page 29:

A vehicle, generally pulled by an animal, which moves over snow or ice on runners, used for transporting persons or goods. (contrast "sled", which is smaller)


sleigh

en-adj

sleigh (comparative sleigher, superlative sleighest)

sleigher (comparative)
sleighest (superlative)


smack

From Middle Low German smack (Low German Schmacke, Schmaake (“small ship”)) or Dutch smak, perhaps ultimately related to smakken, imitative of the sails' noise.

onomatopoeic

imitative

But without Union reinforcement, as many men as could be packed into a mere fishing smack could take the fort, Meigs wrote to Washington.

2009, Simon Schama, The American Future: A History:

A small sailing vessel, commonly rigged as a sloop, used chiefly in the coasting and fishing trade and often called a fishing smack


wagonette

The cabs here are mostly covered waggonettes, with one horse. They hold four people; the sides have coloured glass, and behind the driver there is a window which is drawn aside when you communicate with him.

1901 July 19, “To Australia and Back”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume 4, number 10, page 298:

On glowing summer afternoons wagonettes came full of Americans and cultured suburbans to see the sepulchre

1911, G. K. Chesterton, “The Sign of the Broken Sword”, in The Innocence of Father Brown:

The departure was not unduly prolonged.[…]Within the door Mrs. Spoker hastily imparted to Mrs. Love a few final sentiments on the subject of Divine Intention in the disposition of buckets; farewells and last commiserations; a deep, guttural instigation to the horse; and the wheels of the waggonette crunched heavily away into obscurity.

1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

He was a peasant worker from Tienchen County, and had been working on the dam, carrying earth and stone or pushing wagonettes here for half a year.

1954, People's China, numbers 1-12, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 31, column 1:

A kind of four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage, normally uncovered.


whaler

without the wine–whine merger, non-rhotic

Composed of whale + -er. In sense 1, displaced Old English hwælhunta (literally “whale hunter”).

ncog

But o' Thursday t' Resolution, first whaler back this season, came in port.

1863, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Sylvia's Lovers, section V:

Making myself at home with him, I desired to know what brought him so far from the "big smoke," and on board a whaler of all places in the world.

1898, Frank Thomas Bullen, The Cruise of the Cachalot:

The log of the Emily Morgan, an American whaler that visited Guam many times, described Spanish control:[…].

1995, Robert F. Rogers, Destiny's Landfall: A History of Guam, page 98:

But the Golden Lion was ambushed by a Naval frigate thinking that a whaler's crew would be useful pressed men. The whaler 's crew didn't agree, and there was a bloody skirmish on shore between the press gang and the crew of the Golden Lion which caused such a scandal that from then on whalers ' men were exempt from conscription.

2001, Arabella McIntyre-Brown, Liverpool: The First 1,000 years, page 79:

(nautical) A seagoing vessel used for hunting whales.


lighter

→ Bengali: লাইটার (laiṭar)

→ Danish: lighter

→ Hindi: लाइटर (lāiṭar)

→ Japanese: ライター (raitā)

→ Korean: 라이터 (raiteo)

→ Norwegian:

→ Norwegian Bokmål: lighter

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: lighter

→ Pashto: لایټر (lāyṭar) (neologism)

→ Persian: لایْتَر (lāytar) (Dari)

→ Urdu: لائِٹَر (lāiṭar)

From light (“to ignite”) + -er. Cognate with Middle Dutch lichtere, lichter (“one who spreads light, illuminator”), Dutch lichter, luchter (“candle-holder, chandelier”). Compare also Middle English lightnere, liȝtnere (“one who enlightens or illuminates”).

Cigarette in mouth, he clutched his pockets in search of a lighter.

A device used to light things, especially a reusable handheld device for creating fire to light cigarettes.


aircraft carrier

en-noun

aircraft carrier (plural aircraft carriers)

A warship designed to carry aircraft, serving as a seagoing air base, with a deck on which aircraft can be launched and landed.


battleship

From battle + ship; shortened from line-of-battle ship, attested 1794.

Schlachtschiff n. Schlachtschiff is used for dreadnought battleships

Linienschiff is used for pre-dreadnought battleships.

(military, nautical) A large capital warship displacing thousands to tens of thousands of tons, heavily armoured and armed with large-caliber guns; now obsolescent and replaced by smaller vessels with guided missiles.

(science fiction, by extension) A starship of comparable role

A non-functional rocket stage, used for configuration and integration tests.

A guessing game played on grid paper; see Battleship (game).


Clio

Fred loved to take his Clio for a spin.

(automotive) A model of car manufactured by Renault.


carpenter

From Middle English carpenter, from Anglo-Norman carpenter (compare Old French charpentier), from Late Latin carpentārius (“a carpenter”), from Latin carpentārius (“a wagon-maker, carriage-maker”), from Latin carpentum (“a two-wheeled carriage, coach, or chariot, a cart”), from Gaulish carbantos, from Proto-Celtic *karbantos (“chariot, war chariot”), probably related to Proto-Celtic *karros (“wagon”). Doublet of carpintero. More at car.
Displaced native Old English trēowwyrhta (literally “tree worker”).

ncog

(nautical) A senior rating in ships responsible for all the woodwork onboard; in the days of sail, a warrant officer responsible for the hull, masts, spars and boats of a ship, and whose responsibility was to sound the well to see if the ship was making water.

船匠

nautical: person responsible for all the woodwork onboard


satellite

From Middle French satellite, from Latin satelles (“attendant”). Ultimately perhaps of Etruscan origin.

Do you have satellite at your house?

(colloquial, uncountable) Satellite TV; reception of television broadcasts via services that use man-made satellite technology.

(grammar) A grammatical construct that takes various forms and may encode a path of movement, a change of state, or the grammatical aspect. Examples: "a bird flew past"; "she turned on the light".

(genetics) A very large array of tandemly repeating, non-coding DNA.


hood

From Middle English hood, hod, from Old English hōd, from Proto-Germanic *hōdaz (cognate with Saterland Frisian Houd, West Frisian/Dutch hoed, German Low German Hood, German Hut). Cognate with Proto-Iranian *xawdaH (“hat”) (compare Avestan 𐬑𐬂𐬛𐬀 (xåda), Old Persian 𐎧𐎢𐎭 (x-u-d /xaudā/)), from Proto-Indo-European *kadʰ- (“to cover”). More at hat.

kapuç

covering for the head attached to a larger garment such as a jacket or cloak

(automotive, chiefly US, Canada) The hinged cover over the engine of a motor vehicle, known as a bonnet in other countries.


ferry

→ Bengali: ফেরি (pheri)

→ Catalan: ferri

→ French: ferry

→ Greek: φέρι (féri)

→ Japanese: フェリー (ferī)

→ Malay: feri

→ Portuguese: ferry

→ Spanish: ferri, ferry

→ Swahili: feri

desc

→ Thai: เฟอร์รี (fəə-rîi)

→ Thai: เฟอร์รี (fəə-rîi)

From Middle English ferien (“to carry, convey, convey in a boat”), from Old English ferian (“to carry, convey, bear, bring, lead, conduct, betake oneself to, be versed in, depart, go”), from Proto-West Germanic *farjan, from Proto-Germanic *farjaną (“to make or let go, transfer, ferry”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to bring or carry over, transfer, pass through”).
Cognate with German dialectal feren, fähren (“to row, sail”), Danish færge (“to ferry”), Swedish färja (“to ferry”), Icelandic ferja (“to ferry”), Norwegian Nynorsk/Norwegian Bokmål ferje (“to ferry”) Old Norse ferja. Related to fare.

der

To reach Mui Wo, a small town on Lantau Island, you take a ferry from central Hong Kong, and after a 30-minute ride arrive at a small square with a car park and bus stops blackened by fumes.

2019 November 22, Ilaria Maria Sala, “After the Protests: How Will Hong Kong Vote?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2019-11-22, Opinion:

(nautical) A ship used to transport people, smaller vehicles and goods from one port to another, usually on a regular schedule.


pram

(colloquial, loosely) A pushchair; a buggy.


pram

From Dutch praam (“a flat-bottomed boat”), from Middle Dutch praem, from Middle Low German prām, from Old Czech *prám, from Proto-Slavic *pormъ.

(nautical, historical) A flat-bottomed barge used on shallow shores to convey cargo to and from ships that cannot enter the harbour.

(nautical, historical) A similar barge used as platform for cannons in shallow waters which seagoing warships cannot enter.

Although the pram, like the johnboat, has a squared-off bow as well as stern, the bow lines on the pram will be narrower than those encountered on a johnboat.

August 1979, F. M. Paulson, “Car-topable Craft”, in Field & Stream, page 50:

Nothing can beat the simple pleasure of paddling a pram around on a foggy dawn, probing pad flats, stumps and fallen logs for lurking bass.


motor

From Middle English motour (“controller, prime mover; God”), from Latin mōtor (“mover; that which moves something”), from mōtō (“I set in motion”).

der

A motor yacht for its size has about 30 per cent more accommodations than a steamer of the same size.

1915 June, “Many Yachts to Go in Commission”, in The American Marine Engineer:

internal combustion engine
internal combustion engine

(nautical) Propelled by an internal combustion engine (as opposed to a steam engine or turbine).

моторен

nautical: propelled by an internal combustion engine


flatboat

A boxy, flat-bottomed boat used for carrying livestock, freight, and people on rivers.


xebec

From French chebec, from Spanish xabeque or Catalan xabec or Italian sciabecco, from Arabic شُبَّاك (šubbāk, “fishing-net”). Not to confuse with the sambuq, an Indian-Sea vessel.

Fourteen Xebecks loaded with Ammunition, Cannon, and other warlike Stores from Majorca, bound to any Part of Italy, where they could be landed for the Uſe of the Spaniſh Army, having got ſafe to Genoa in the latter End of June, Admiral Mathews on board of the Namur, with the Barfleur, Norfolk, Princeſs Caroline, Ipſwich and Revenge went there, and concluded a Treaty; […]

1744, “a sea-officer” [Thomas Mathews?], A Narrative of the Proceedings of His Majesty’s Fleet in the Mediterranean, and the Combined Fleets of France and Spain, from the Year 1741, to March 1744. […], London: Printed for J. Millan, […], →OCLC, page 25:

An Engliſh privateer, Capt. Clymer, taken by two Spaniſh xebecs in the Weſt Indies.

1746 September, “Ships Taken by the French and Spaniards, August 1746”, in Sylvanus Urban [pseudonym; Edward Cave], editor, The Gentleman’s Magazine, volume XVI, London: Printed by E[dward] Cave, jun. […], →OCLC, page 459:

This afternoon, Wind W.S.W. an Engliſh brig appeared in the offing; ſhe was chaſed by a xebec and ſeveral gallies, but fortunately got ſafe into New Mole: She brings the joyful and happy tidings of a fine fleet being within twenty-four hours ſail of the Garriſon.

1784, S[amuel] Ancell, chapter V, in A Circumstantial Journal of the Long and Tedious Blockade and Siege of Gibraltar, from the 12th of September, 1779, (the Day the Garrison Opened Their Batteries against the Spaniards) to the 23d Day of February, 1783; […], Liverpool: Printed by Charles Wosencroft, →OCLC, page 27:

On the 18th October, about five leagues from Gibraltar, we were boarded by a zebeck of 20 guns, belonging to this place, who after coming within musket-shot, kept up a constant firing with small arms, until they manned our yards from theirs, then the firing ceased, and they came down sword in hand, spared our lives, but nothing else, having stripped us of the clothes we had on, and put us on board the zebeck, […]

1793 November 13, attributed to Mathew Carey, “[Appendix.] No. IV. Extract of a Letter from John M‘Shane, Captain of the Minerva, to William Bell, dated Algiers, November 13, 1793”, in A Short History of Algiers, with a Concise View of the Origin of the Rupture between Algiers and the United States. […], 3rd improved edition, New York, N.Y.: Published by Evert Duyckinck, […]; W[illiam] W. Vermilye, printer, published 1805, →OCLC, page 82:

Soon after this time he [John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent] was put into the Experiment as acting captain, on account of a ſhort indiſpoſition which attacked ſir Richard Strachan, and ſignalized himſelf in the moſt remarkable manner during an action with a very large zebec, carrying 26 heavy guns and 400 men.

1798, John Charnock, “ST. VINCENT, Sir John Jervis, K.B. Earl of”, in Biographia Navalis; or, Impartial Memoirs of the Lives and Characters of Officers of the Navy of Great Britain, from the Year 1660 to the Present Time; […], volume VI (Being the Second Volume of the Continuation), London: Printed for R. Faulder, […], →OCLC, footnote ‡, page 406:

On the 13th of December, at eight in the morning, Cape St. Martin, coast of Spain, bearing south-south-west six leagues, the british 16-gun brig-sloop Halcyon, captain Henry Whitmarsh Pearse, perceived three sail standing towards her from the land. Being on contrary tacks, the two parties closed fast; and, when about four miles apart, the Halcyon discovered the strangers to be an armed ship, brig, and xebec.

1824, William James, “Encounters of Detached Ships”, in The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France, in February 1793; to the Accession of George IV. in January 1820; […] In Five Volumes, volume IV, London: Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, →OCLC, page 104:

Winter. The green xebec whose figurehead was Astarte, goddess of sexual love, tacked slowly into the Grand Harbour.

1963, Thomas Pynchon, “Epilogue: 1919”, in V.: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: J. B. Lippincott & Co., →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, 1964 March, →OCLC, page 19:

The choice of ship of the Maghrebi sailors was influenced above all by local traditions, by their different objectives, and by the availability of the vessels. It is apparent that the xebeck, with its sleek lines, its reputation for speed—admittedly at the expense of its carrying capacity—was the preferred choice of the North Africans. It is true that the xebeck served in privateering and at least a percentage of the ships assigned to shipping merchandise were converted corsairs, with somewhat reduced gunpowder and much smaller crews.

2005, Daniel Panzac, John E. Hawkes, “The Commercial Fleets of the Maghreb”, in Victoria Hobson, transl., edited by Suraiya Faroqhi and Halil İnalcık, Barbary Corsairs: The End of a Legend 1800–1820 (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage: Politics, Society and Economy; 29), Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, →ISBN, →ISSN, pages 193–194:

A small two-masted, and later three-masted, Mediterranean transport ship with an overhanging bow and stern.


raft

Late Middle English, of North Germanic origin, from West Old Norse raptr, from Proto-Germanic *raf-tra-, from Proto-Indo-European *rap-tro-, from *rep- (“stake, beam”). See also Norwegian raft (“beam, rafter”), Danish raft (“thin pole”). Compare also Albanian trap (“raft, ferry”).

They floated down the river on an inflatable raft

A flat-bottomed craft able to float and drift on water, used for transport or as a waterborne platform.


bumper

Dutch: bumper

Japanese: バンパー (banpā)

Korean: 범퍼 (beompeo)

Russian: ба́мпер (bámper)

(automotive) Parts at the front and back of a vehicle which are meant to absorb the impact of a collision; fender.


hopper

From Middle English hoppere, alteration of *hoppe (found in grashoppe (“grasshopper”)), from Old English *hoppa (“one who hops, hopper”), equivalent to hop + -er. Cognate with Dutch hopper (“hopper”), Swedish hoppare (“hopper, jumper”), Icelandic hoppari (“hopper”).


funny

Perhaps a jocular use of funny. See above.

I myself recollect the funnies at Eton, which were certain little boats, capable of containing one person only, who, like an Indian in his canoe, was constantly obliged to balance himself, with such critical nicety, that the least mistake was certain of producing a ducking.

1810, Letters from a Nobleman to His Son, During the Period of His Education at Eton and Oxford, volume 1, pages 63–64:

As I do not belong to the boat-club, I always row by myself in a funny […] or at least go in a two-oared boat, with some friend with whom I should otherwise be walking.

1841 December 12, William Thomson, “[Letter to father]”, in Silvanus P. Thompson, The Life of William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs, volume 1, published 1910, page 33:

We were going to have a go in one of the double scull ‘funnies’ that could be had from the Rowing Club in the harbour, but he is off up the line tomorrow to rejoin his old Battery.

1971, Julian Tyndale-Biscoe, Gunner Subaltern, page 144:

There was a great market for leisure boats, too: no wherries any longer, but whole fleets of punts, rowing gigs, funnies, skiffs, whiffs and randans […]

1999, Patrick Wright, The River: The Thames in Our Time, →ISBN, page 145:

(UK, Ireland, nautical, dated) A narrow, clinker-built double-ender for sculling.


lorry

→ Hausa: lori

→ Iban: lori

→ Juba Arabic: lori

→ Malay: lori (“heavy truck”)

→ Chinese: 羅里 (luólǐ), 羅厘 /罗厘 (luólí)

→ Farefare: loore

→ German: Lore

→ Irish: leoraí

→ Malay: lori

→ Moore: lore

→ Scottish Gaelic: làraidh

→ Swahili: lori

→ Telugu: లారీ (lārī)

→ Welsh: lorri, lori

→ Zulu: iloli

Uncertain; perhaps from dialectal English lurry (“to lug or pull about, drag”), or from the forename Laurie. First attested in early to middle 19th century.

cog

But whenever one of the motor-trucks lumbering by bore a big U.S. on its rear panel Troy pushed his light ambulance ahead and skimmed past, just for the joy of seeing the fresh young heads rising pyramid-wise about the sides of the lorry, hearing the snatches of familiar songs—"Hail, hail, the gang's all here!" and "We won't come back till it's over over here!"—and shouting back in reply to a stentorian "Hi, kid, beat it!", "Bet your life I will, old man!"

1918, Edith Wharton, chapter IX, in The Marne, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, pages 87–88:

The most frequent age for starting in the actual occupation of lorry driving is 17 years. Trampers tend to start later, the mode amongst them being 19 years. The mean average age for beginning in lorry driving in the sample is between 21 and 23 years. The mean average number of years spent in lorry driving varies according to the type of driver.

1968, Peter G. Hollowell, “The Lorry Driver’s Career”, in The Lorry Driver (The International Library of Sociology; 154), London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York, N.Y.: Humanities Press, →OCLC; republished Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 1998 (2007 printing), →ISBN, page 61:

Until the main road from Hatfield to Hertford was diverted a few years ago, heavy lorries trundling through the village sometimes knocked chunks off corner buildings, but now the village has regained much of its former tranquillity.

1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 224, about Hertingfordbury:

Our journey through the streets of Singapore awoke strange emotions. Very little of the structural damage seemed to have been repaired beyond make-shift patchwork. The streets had a dingy and forlorn look. We arrived outside the British American Tobacco building and had our first experience of the shouting and hustlings that accompanied all Japanese supervision of our movements. We were shouted at to get out of the lorry with our baggage and make out way into the building.

1987, Richard Pool, “Prisoner of War”, in Course for Disaster: From Scapa Flow to the River Kwai, London: Leo Cooper, Heinemann, →ISBN, page 164:

The plantain lorry caught up with them in a blind curve. Jeff caught a glimpse of the driver's face in the mirror as he fought to swing the old truck out around the car. At that moment Jeff heard the sound of the horn of a vehicle coming up the road. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the old lorry beside him; its driver desperately trying to avoid the passenger lorry coming up the scarp.

2003, John C. Kennedy, “The Child”, in Last Lorry to Mbordo: Misadventures in Nation Building: A Novel, Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 176:

At the platform in Pathankot, they must have overheard me asking the porter handling my luggage that I wanted to go to the lorry stand for Kashmir. [...] There were no buses then, some primitive contraptions called lorries. A far cry from the spacious and comfortable buses of the present day. They were not only rudimentary and crude, they also travelled very slow.

2005, Nagindra Mohan Kachroo, “Nostalgic Home Fires”, in Moments of Melancholy: (A Basket of Short Stories), New Delhi: S. B. Nangia, A. P. H. Publishing Corporation, →ISBN, page 129:

I know I swing me Volvo all around you market square. I know you think that lorry drivers, we just don't care. But the streets are so narrow, built so many years ago. They were built for horses' carts, not juggernauts you know.

2019, “I love my juggernaut”, in The Pothole Song Album, performed by Richie Kavanagh:

There was also the influx of a third of a million road lorries, sold at giveaway prices after their war roles ceased and used by competing one-man businesses to skim off sundry agricultural freight.

2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 51:

(British, Ireland, South Asia, Africa) A large and heavy motor vehicle designed to carry goods or soldiers; a truck

(road transport, Singapore, Malaysia) a truck with an open carriage, sometimes used for transporting construction workers.

(dated) A barrow or truck for shifting baggage, as at railway stations.

In order that these very important mails might not be unnecessarily delayed, we procured an express engine, and having, as is customary in such cases, fastened those for Manchester and the North on a larry between the engine and the Post-office, they being too bulky to travel in the latter, we departed at 8.10, [...] On our arrival at the next station, Crewe, we were much alarmed at the intelligence received from the engineer, that one of the bags on the larry, which proved to be the Carlisle, was on fire: [...]

1838 February 16, Fred[eric]k W. Karstadt, W. Mellush, “Minutes of Evidence”, in Report from the Select Committee on Railroad Communication; […], [London]: Ordered, by the House of Commons [of the United Kingdom], to be printed, published 28 March 1838, →OCLC, paragraph 1183, page 103:

Platelayers, or others, who may have hand lorries or waggons on the line without engines, are strictly charged never to have the same on the line so as to be in the way of a coming train, except for some indispensable purpose, and then special care must be taken to warn any approaching train by proper signal in sufficient time.

1846, “Instructions to Plate-layers”, in Rules and Regulations to be Observed by Engine-men & Others Employed on the East Lancashire Railway, Manchester: Printed by Shaw and M‘Corquodale, →OCLC, page 20:

For the services of horses and conveyances as may be required at either camp, at a charge per diem to be stated in tender, specifying single horse carts and four horse lorries.

1887 March 14, John F. Hartigan, “[Cartage of Camp Equipments. (Contracts for Years 1885, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, and 1890.)] Cartage for Camp Equipment, Material and Stores for Permanent and Volunteers Forces, for Easter Encampment at National Park and Middle Head, 1887.”, in New South Wales. Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly during the Session of 1890, with the Various Documents Connected therewith. In Eight Volumes, volume II, Sydney, N.S.W.: Charles Potter, government printer, […], published 9 July 1890, →OCLC, page 216:

[Garran.] Would it make any difference to you whether the tramway were worked by horses or by cable? [Macintosh.] It would not matter to me, so long as I could get into my premises. We have, perhaps, one of the largest businesses, in heavy material, in Pitt-street, and this traffic is carried on by lorries. If a tramway were laid down in the street, we should not be able to get into our premises.

1890 May 6, Andrew Garran, John Macintosh, witness, “Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works. Minutes of Evidence. Cable Tramway from King-street, via William-street, to Ocean-street.”, in New South Wales. Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly during the Session of 1891–2, with the Various Documents Connected therewith. In Eight Volumes, volume V, Sydney, N.S.W.: Charles Potter, government printer, […], published 1892, →OCLC, paragraph 937, page 36:

In Barton's case it was a State Coal Department lorry that hit him and smashed him and the Government would not admit that the State Coal Department lorry was a public work.

1909 October 15, Thomas Mason Wilford, “Address in Reply”, in New Zealand. Parliamentary Debates. First Session, Seventeenth Parliament. […] (House of Representatives), volume 146, Wellington: John Mackay, government printer, →OCLC, page 237, column 1:

The stoning continued heavily from the crowd following in rear and from the fresh crowd, until they reached a spot some 50 yards from the mill. [...] Dawson observed from his position in the Police lorry which was in rear of the mill lorry, that the horses were being hit and giving trouble. He also saw stones falling on the cooly lorry, and Police lorry. The mill lorry being covered in with expanded metal, none of its occupants were hurt.

1920 December 24, “Madras Mill Riots. Police Commissioner’s Report.”, in The Pioneer Mail and Indian Weekly News, volume XLVII, number 52, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh: The Pioneer and Civil & Military Gazette, Limited, →OCLC, page 20, column 3:

Ties should never be hauled on a motor car, but they may safely be hauled on a lorrie car properly coupled to a motor car.

1936, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Journal, St. Louis, Mo., Detroit, Mich.: Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes, →OCLC, page 19, column 2:

(obsolete) A large, low, horse-drawn, four-wheeled cart without sides; also, a similar wagon modified for use on railways.


lorry

en-verb

lorry (third-person singular simple present lorries, present participle lorrying, simple past and past participle lorried)

lorries (present singular third-person)
lorrying (participle present)
lorried (participle past)
lorried (past)

He lorried away with a whole pile of things, and cheated the bailiffs.

1869 December 18, T. T. W., “Lurry”, in Notes and Queries: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, General Readers, etc., volume IV (4th Series), London: Published at the office, 43 Wellington Street, Strand, W.C., →OCLC, page 550, column 2:

The midday meal at 1230hrs for 'C' and 'D' Companies would be followed by them parading at the camp gates for lorrying to Hazebrouck.

2002, Norman Brooke, chapter 7, in Half-pint Heroes: The Bantams of World War One, London: Janus Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 62:

[S]he had bought three jars of baby food, for convenience, and was busy lorrying them into me when I unintentionally spurted a huge mouthful all over her magnificent blouse and skirt.

2011, Penelope Pansy, “Time Goes By”, in The Story of Penelope Pansy, [s.l.]: Penelope Pansy, →ISBN, page 52:

At a lamplit corner I signalled a cross-bearing transport, and to low salutations of 'Evening, sir,' was hoisted up, bag and all, and swiftly lorried away.

2014, D. G. Holliday, Damage: A Novel of the Great War, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire: Matador, →ISBN, page 13:

(transitive, also figuratively) To transport by, or as if by, lorry.


hovercraft

en-noun

hovercraft (plural hovercrafts or hovercraft)

hovercrafts (plural)
hovercraft (plural)

From hover + -craft. Originally a trademark by Saunders-Roe Limited, a British aero- and marine-engineering company.

The snapshot shows the whale parallel above the water almost as if it’s competing in belly-flop contest, doing a midair plank or floating across the bay like a hovercraft.

2022 July 24, Morgan Krakow, “It began as a typical ferry ride in Kachemak Bay. Then a minke whale went airborne.”, in Anchorage Daily News:

genericized trademark
genericized trademark

(vehicles, genericized trademark) A vehicle supported on a cushion of air, able to traverse many different types of terrain and travel over water, used for transport.


sputnik

Etymology tree
Proto-Slavic *sъ(n)
Russian с- (s-)
Proto-Indo-European *pent-
Proto-Indo-European *póntoh₁s
Proto-Balto-Slavic *pántis
Proto-Slavic *pǫtь
Proto-Indo-European *-nós
Proto-Slavic *-ьnъ
Proto-Slavic *-ikъ
Proto-Slavic *-ьnikъ
Proto-Slavic *pǫtьnikъ
Russian пу́тник (pútnik)
Russian спу́тник (spútnik)bor.
English sputnik
From Russian спу́тник (spútnik, “satellite”, literally “fellow traveller”), from с- (s-, “with, together”) + пу́тник (pútnik, “traveller”), from путь (putʹ, “way, journey”) + agent suffix -ник (-nik).

bor

National Air and Space Museum
Sputnik (disambiguation)
Sputnik 1

Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we would beat them to the moon. The science wasn't even there yet. NASA didn't exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs. This is our generation's Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven't seen since the height of the Space Race. And in a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal.

2011 January 5, Barack Obama, Jon Favreau, speechwriter, “Remarks by the President in State of Union Address”, in White House Office of the Press Secretary, WhiteHouse.gov, archived from the original on 2016-05-06:

(historical) Any of a series of Soviet robotic space satellites, especially the first one in 1957.


Croydon

From Old English Crogedena ("saffron valley"), from Old English croh (“saffron”) (< Latin crocus (“saffron”)) + Old English denu (“valley”).

South Cambridgeshire
South Cambridgeshire#English

A village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire district, Cambridgeshire, England (OS grid ref TL3149).

census-designated place
census-designated place

A census-designated place in Bristol Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

An unincorporated community in Morgan County, Utah.

A suburb of Sydney, in the Municipality of Burwood and Inner West council area, New South Wales.

A suburb of Adelaide, in the City of Charles Sturt, South Australia.


galleon

From Middle French galion or Spanish galeón. Originally an augmentative form of a Romance language cognate of galley, the word spread around the Mediterranean from the 12th century, taking on different meanings depending on place and time.

A large, three masted, square rigged sailing ship with at least two decks.


Toyota

en-proper noun

Toyota (countable and uncountable, plural Toyotas)

[tɔɪ̯ˈoʊ̯ɾə]

[taɪ̯ˈoʊ̯ɾə]

From Japanese トヨタ (Toyota), from the name of the Toyoda family. The spelling was changed to Toyota because of a belief that it sounded better, or because トヨタ takes eight strokes to write, and 8 is considered lucky.

(automotive) The Toyota Motor Corporation, a Japanese manufacturer of cars.

Coordinate term: Lexus

It is the prelapsarian Polynesia of free love, noble savagery, Kon Tiki rafting and Easter Island statuary, not the Levi’s-wearing, Toyota-driving, pédalo-pushing, efflorescent-cocktails-in-a-split-coconut-serving pseudo-paradise that awaits latter-day travellers.

2001, Stephen Brown, Marketing – the Retro Revolution, London: SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 139:

(automotive) A brand of car manufactured by Toyota.


Toyota

[tɔɪ̯ˈoʊ̯ɾə]

[taɪ̯ˈoʊ̯ɾə]


Mercedes

en-prop

Mercedes (countable and uncountable, plural Mercedes)

From Spanish Mercedes (Mary, Our Lady of Mercy). The car was named for Mercédès Jellinek, the daughter of Austrian businessman Emil Jellinek who ordered 36 cars from Gottlieb Daimler.

A city in Buenos Aires province, Argentina.

A city, the capital of the Mercedes department, Corrientes province, Argentina.

A department of Corrientes province, Argentina.

A district of Heredia canton, Heredia province, Costa Rica.

A municipality in Camarines Norte province, Philippines.

A municipality in Eastern Samar province, Philippines.

A city in Hidalgo County, Texas, United States.

A city, the capital of the Soriano department, Uruguay.


Mercedes

en-noun

Mercedes (plural Mercedes or Mercedeses)

On a bridge that leads from Nile Street to the café in Tahrir Square where [Naguib] Mahfouz takes his morning coffee, there is often a beggar working his way among cars stuck in the city’s perpetual traffic jam. One of his legs is missing, and he hops up to the windows of the Mercedeses and Fiats on his remaining, bare foot.

1989 November, Christopher Dickey, “At the Ali Baba Café”, in Vanity Fair, volume 52, number 11, New York, N.Y.: The Condé Nast Publications Inc., →ISSN, page 240:

Samuel T. blew off the line-up of sheep at the base of Easterly’s hill, shooting his Jag around the Mercedeses, Audis, Porsches, and limos, and waving at the parkers who tried to flag him down so he’d stop.

2015 July, J. R. Ward [pseudonym; Jessica Rowley Pell Bird Blakemore], chapter 31, in The Bourbon Kings, New York, N.Y.: New American Library, →ISBN, page 273:

Anton and I saw each of them pull up in their Mercedeses and BMWs and park quasi-legally within a convenient distance of the diner.

2018, Keith Gessen, A Terrible Country: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Viking, →ISBN, page 322:

Clipping of Mercedes-Benz, a car manufactured by Mercedes-Benz.


Peugeot

En-us-Peugeot from France pronunciation (Voice of America).ogg


Mercedes-Benz

An automotive brand or marque from Daimler-Benz.


Mercedes-Benz

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz / My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends / Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends / So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz

1971, “Mercedes Benz”, in Pearl, performed by Janis Joplin:

A car of a particular brand manufactured by Daimler AG.

梅賽德斯·奔馳 /梅赛德斯·奔驰

a brand of car manufactured by Daimler AG


coop

en-verb

coop (third-person singular simple present coops, present participle cooping, simple past and past participle cooped)

coops (present singular third-person)
cooping (participle present)
cooped (participle past)
cooped (past)

Dutch Bantam
Marshall, Texas
Oxford English Dictionary
coop

From Middle English cǒupe, cupe, from Old English cȳpe (“basket, cask”) or possibly from Middle Dutch cûpe (compare modern Dutch kuip, Saterland Frisian kupe, Middle Low German kûpe), from Old Saxon *kûpa, côpa (“cask”) (compare Middle Low German kôpe, Old High German chôfa, chuofa, Middle High German kuofe, modern regional German Kufe f (“cask”)), probably from Latin cūpa, Medieval Latin cōpa (“cask”) (thus a doublet of coupe, cup, and keeve). However, the Oxford English Dictionary notes that if the word is from Latin, “it is difficult to account for the umlaut in Old English cýpe”.

COOPING. The term cooping refers to police officers sleeping on duty. […] One critic of two-man squad cars suggests that this is a recipe for cooping, since one officer can drive while the other sleeps.

2001, Mitchel P. Roth, Historical Dictionary of Law Enforcement, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, →ISBN, pages 76–77:

One of his first, and most groundbreaking, stories was about "cooping," police slang for sleeping on duty. It was sparked when Burnham interviewed Jim Curran, then a New York City policeman, who referred to someone being "in the coop," Burnham recalled. […] Burnham heard that every day thousands upon thousands of New York police supposedly working the night shift were actually sleeping, stashed in coops all over the city, only to be awakened if a crime was discovered. […] Cooping was a natural result and a dramatic example of a city agency misusing its resources.

2010, Bill Kovach, Tom Rosenstiel, Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury USA, →ISBN, page 155:

The majority of policemen, […] act so as to save the public from harm, i.e., they shun their duties. Instead of being up and about, interfering with the rights of the people, many policemen choose the honorable way out—they coop. Cooping (sleeping in some out-of-the-way place while on duty) was a situation which enraged [Frank] Serpico. In the finest tradition of the busybody who insists on running other people's lives, Serpico insisted on being out on the streets at all hours, stopping a prostitute here, ambushing a gambler there, harassing drug merchants everywhere.

2012, Walter Block, Defending the Undefendable: The Pimp, Prostitute, Scab, Slumlord, Libeler, Moneylender, and Other Scapegoats in the Rogue's Gallery of American Society, Baltimore, Md.: Laissez Faire Books, →ISBN:

This cynicism may lead to an increased number of job actions and deviance, such as the "blue flu" or "cooping."

2012, Jeffrey Ian Ross, Policing Issues: Challenges and Controversies, Sudbury, Mass.: Jones & Bartlett Learning, →ISBN, page 66:

Cooping-prone areas are those locations where officers tend to engage in non-police activities that interrupt patrols in an unauthorized manner. A variety of such locations can be surmised, such as spending time at home or other locations not in the officer's area of responsibility while on duty. The department provided the example of officers parking in desolate areas to sleep.

2015, Steven V. Gilbert, Barbara A. Gilbert, Police Corruption in the NYPD: From Knapp to Mollen, Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, →ISBN, pages 116–117:

(intransitive, law enforcement, slang) Of a police officer: to sleep or relax while on duty.


coop

Possibly from coop, above. Sense 2 may be from English coup (“to tilt, overturn, upset”).

cog

COOP, […] A cart, the box of which moves upon its shafts by hinges, by which means it may be emptied of its load without unyoking the horse, S. "The body of the cowp-cart is attached to the shafts by a peculiar kind of hinges, which allow of elevating it before, either partially or entirely, to facilitate the discharge of its load backwards, either by degrees into small heaps, or at once, without the trouble of unyoking the shaft horse." Agr. Surv. of Berw. p. 167. As used in the latter sense, the term is obviously from the v. to Coup, to overturn.

[1825, John Jamieson, “COOP”, in Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language: […], volume I (A–J) (in Scots), Edinburgh: […] University Press; for W[illiam] & C[harles] Tait, […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, →OCLC, page 248, column 1:

(regional, England, Scotland) A cart which opens at the back to release its load; a tumbril.


fireship

Fireships were famously used by Sir Francis Drake when fighting the Spanish Armada of 1588.

His attempt in 208 to cross the Yangtse was frustrated in the famous battle of Ch'ih-pi, in which his immense fleet was destroyed by his enemies' fireships, and most of his army slain.

1984, Witold Rodzinksi, The Walled Kingdom: A History of China from 2000 BC to the Present, London: Fontana Paperbacks, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 69:

(nautical, historical) A wooden ship set alight and then sent floating into an enemy flotilla, with the aim of spreading the fire among them.


wagon

→ Dutch: wagon

→ French: wagon (see there for further descendants)

→ German: Waggon

→ Japanese: わごん, ワゴン (wagon)

→ Polish: wagon

→ Spanish: vagón

Borrowed from Middle Dutch wagen, from Old Dutch *wagan, from Proto-West Germanic *wagn, from Proto-Germanic *wagnaz (“wagon”), from Proto-Indo-European *woǵʰnos (“wagon, primitive carriage”), from *weǵʰ- (“to transport”). Doublet of wain. Related also to way, weigh.
Sense 8 (“woman of loose morals; obnoxious woman”) is probably a derogatory and jocular reference to a woman being “ridden”, that is, mounted for the purpose of sexual intercourse.
The verb is derived from the noun.

wa

four-wheeled cart for hauling loads — see also cart

(US, chiefly New England) A shopping cart.


ute

The Reverend John Flynn, a man of simple tastes, was always recognisable in the outback, dressed in a suit, driving an old ute and puffing on a pipe.

2007, Sheryl Persson, The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, Australia: Exisle Publishing, →ISBN, page 40:

Still, given the choice between being stuck behind a ute in tropical scenery and spending four to five hours driving through stretches of semi-desert, I′d rather have the ute-plus-heart-attack.

2008, Penelope Adams, Why Women Are Stupid, Lulu, →ISBN, page 105:

A sample body was made in 1933 and the first utilities, or ‘utes’, rolled off the production line next year. Dubbed ‘the Kangaroo Chaser’ by Henry Ford when Bandt displayed two examples in Detroit, United States of America, in 1935, the ute was quickly recognised as the ideal farmers' vehicle.

2009, Damian Veltri, “Bandt, Louis (Lewis) Thornett (1910–1987)”, in edited by Dianne Lingmore and Darryl Bennet, Australian Dictionary of Biography, volume 17 1981–1990: A–K, →ISBN, page 55:

Paramedics rushed Melissa Dennis to the Royal Adelaide hospital with serious injuries after she was hit by a ute at Medindie on Saturday night.

2023 December 31, Matthew Weaver, “Rohan Dennis charged over death of wife, fellow cyclist Melissa Dennis”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(Australia, New Zealand) A small vehicle based on the same platform as a family car but with a unibody construction and a built-in open tray area for carrying goods; similar but not identical to a pick-up truck.

皮卡車 /皮卡车

small vehicle with a built-in open tray area for carrying goods


pickup truck

zh-l

皮卡車／皮卡车 (píkǎchē)

Chinese: 皮卡 (píkǎ), 皮卡車／皮卡车 (píkǎchē)

Japanese: ピックアップトラック (pikkuapputorakku)

Russian: пика́п (pikáp)

Uncertain, but likely related to its intended use to pick up various supplies.

(chiefly Canada, US, Singapore) A light truck with an open cargo bed.


hackney cab

hackney carriage
hackney carriage#English

(chiefly UK) Synonym of hackney carriage, (historical) a carriage pulled by a hackney horse or a motorized vehicle available for public hire.


palanquin

Czech: palankin

Danish: palankin

Polish: palankin

From Portuguese palanquim (“Asian litter, litter-bearer”), from Odia ପାଲଙ୍କି (pālaṅki, “litter”), ultimately from Sanskrit पल्यङ्क (palyaṅka), variant of पर्यङ्क (paryaṅka, “bed, couch, litter”). Doublet of palki.

bor

At the end of two moneths I determined to go for Goa in the companye of two other Portingale Merchants, which were making readye to depart, with two Palanchines or little Litters, which are very commodious for the waye, with eight Falchines which are men hired, to carrie the palanchines, eight for a palanchine, foure at a time...

1588, Thomas Hickok translating Cesare Federici as The Voyage and Trauaile of M. Caesar Frederick, Merchant of Venice into the East India, the Indies, and beyond the Indies..., p. 10

Behold the hero of the scene,
 In bungalow and palankeen.

1885, Henry Austin Dobson, At the Sign of the Lyre, section 177:

'Sedan-chair! Put your 'ead in a bag. That was a palanquin. Don't yer know a palanquin when you see it?' said Ortheris with great scorn... What befell at that interview in the lonely pay-shed by the side of the half-built embankment, only a few hundred coolies know, and their tale is a confusing one, running thus... 'There was a palanquin, for the up-keep of which we were forced to pay nine-tenths of our monthly wage. On such mulctings Dearsley Sahib allowed us to make obeisance to him before the palanquin. What could we do? We were poor men. He took full half of our wages. Will the Government repay us those moneys?...'

1889 December, Rudyard Kipling, “The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney”, in Macmillan's Magazine:

The palanquin carries Pābūjī—and, according to the description on the par, he rides his mare mother on the palanquin...—towards Rāma's heaven.

1999, Alf Hitlebeitel, Rethinking India's Oral and Classical Epics: Draupadi among Rajputs, Muslims, and Dalits, page 110:

(India, chiefly historical) An enclosed human-borne litter or sedan chair, a large box with a chair, couch, or bed raised on horizontal poles and used as a mode of transport.

palankin

an enclosed litter, particularly in Indian contexts — see also litter, sedan chair


dinghy

From Bengali ডিঙি (ḍiṅi), probably from Sanskrit द्रोण (droṇa, “wooden vessel”).

(nautical) An inflatable rubber life raft.


moped

He was drunk again and moped, whining at length about his moped.

A lightweight, two-wheeled vehicle equipped with a small motor and pedals, designed to go no faster than some specified speed limit.


telega

From mid-16th century Russian теле́га (teléga), probably from Khazar.

Three kinds of conveyances are available: the telega, or cart without springs, which has to be changed at every station, and for which a charge of about 8d. is made at every stage; the kibitka, or cart (in winter a sledge) with a hood; and the tarantas, a kind of carriage on wooden springs, which admits of the traveller lying down full length, and which can be made very comfortable at night.

1868, “Route 25: London to Pekin […] ”, in Handbook for Travellers in Russia, Poland, and Finland, 2nd edition, London: John Murray, page 329:

A simple four-wheeled Russian cart without springs.

арба

a simple four-wheeled Russian cart without springs


schooner

Attested ca. 1715, of uncertain origin. Said to be derived from dialectal scoon (“to skim over water”). Compare also shunt (“to cause to move (suddenly)”).

The night was considerably clearer than anybody on board her desired when the schooner Ventura headed for the land.

1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 6, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC:

Designed by Frank Payne's renowned Boston design office, and built in 1928 of longleaf yellow pine, this 82-footer has been a racing schooner — a staysail schooner — since the heyday of Class-A ocean racing in schooners during the late 1920s and early 1930s.

2004, Reese Palley, The Best of Nautical Quarterly: Volume 1: The Lure of Sail, page 181:

In addition to the square-rigged sailing ships, the schooners were the second largest group of large sailing vessels.

2005, Otmar Schäuffelen, Chapman: Great Sailing Ships of the World, page xxi:

Unfortunately, anyone looking for a schooner today has limited choices. In the used boat market there are always some wooden hulls available, and occasionally ones of steel or aluminum, but fiberglass-hulled schooners are harder to come by.

2007, Donald Launer, Lessons from My Good Old Boat, page 240:

(nautical) A sailing ship with two or more masts, all with fore-and-aft sails; if two masted, having a foremast and a mainmast.


Selected so as to be able to continue using most of the labelling from its former name 901 after its competitor Peugeot objected that it had the legal rights to 3-digit automotive model names with a central 0 in the French market. The name 901 had been selected since it was the first version of the 6th major design project after the earlier Porsche 356, which the 911 largely replaced. The name is pronounced "nine-eleven" by analogy with German Neunelfer.

(automotive) A prominent family of sports cars manufactured by Porsche.


rocket

Borrowed from French roquette, from Italian ruchetta, diminutive of ruca, from Latin eruca. Cognate to arugula, rucola, eruca, roquette.

Rocket larkspur (Consolida regalis, syn. Delphinium consolida).


warship

Any ship built or armed for naval combat.


forklift

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-forklift.wav

A small industrial vehicle with a power-operated fork-like pronged platform that can be raised and lowered for insertion under a load, often on pallets, to be lifted and moved.


fire truck

(firefighting, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) A ladder truck, a vehicle used by firefighters to gain access to the upper stories of a building. Typically, a fire truck has a hydraulic system which operates a large, heavy-duty ladder mounted on top of the truck body, space for portable ladders to be stored and compartments for holding other tools that may be needed. Unlike a fire engine, trucks do not have pumps or carry water.


gill

From Middle English gille, gylle (“gill”), of North Germanic origin, akin to Danish gælle, Swedish gäl, Norwegian gjelle, and further to Old Norse gjǫlnar (“lips”), which also may have had the meaning of "gills" (based on Old Danish fiskegæln (“gills”)). The Old Norse word has been suggested as deriving from Proto-Germanic *gelunō (“jaw”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰel-, which would make it root-cognate to Ancient Greek χελύνη (khelúnē, “lip, jaw”), χεῖλος (kheîlos, “lip”).
Displaced native Old English ċīe.

cog

Gill nets are designed to catch a fish by the gills.


gill

From Middle English gille, from Old French gille (“a wine measure”), from Medieval Latin gillo (“earthenware jar”).

der

(archaic, British) A measuring jug holding a quarter or half a pint.

(dated, US) A unit of measure equal to 4 US fluid ounces (half a cup, a quarter of a US pint), approximately 118 milliliters.


admiral's barge

en-noun

admiral's barge (plural admiral's barges)

A motorboat used by flag officers for harbour transport.


barquentine

→ Polish: barkentyna

(nautical) A sailing vessel similar to a barque, but fore-and-aft (schooner) rigged on the mainmast


bathyscaphe

/ˈbæθɪˌskæf/

The fact that the bathyscaphes are self-propelled makes it possible to use them to study the ocean microstructure in the horizontal, although the experiment should include temporal changes, which can be achieved either by using associated buoy stations or using a second suspended bathyscaphe.

1972, Oceanology, volume 12, numbers 4–6, American Geophysical Union, page 931:

It's ironic that when Piccard built his first bathyscaphe in the 1940s people assumed the revolutionary design had evolved from his famous stratospheric balloon. In fact, the reverse was true. In fact, Piccard's prototype bathyscaphe FNRS-2 (named for the Belgian national research foundation), which underwent sea trials in the Atlantic off Senegal in 1948, did possess all the attributes of a clumsy underwater balloon.

2001, Robert D. Ballard, Malcolm McConnell, Adventures in Ocean Exploration: From the Discovery of the Titanic to the Search for Noah's Flood, page 216:

After World War II, engineers built specialized submarines called bathyscaphes to survive the intense pressures of the deep ocean. A pioneer in bathyscaphes was the Swiss-born Belgian physicist Auguste Piccard (1884–1962), who had set the world altitude record in a balloon in 1932. Having turned his attention to the sea, Piccard and his son, Jacques Piccard (1922– ), built a bathyscaphe called the Trieste after World War II.

2005, Eric G. Swedin, Science in the Contemporary World: An Encyclopedia, page 297:

A self-propelled deep-sea diving submersible for exploring the ocean depths, consisting of a crew cabin similar to a bathysphere suspended below a float filled with a buoyant liquid such as petrol.


recumbent

en-adj

recumbent (comparative more recumbent, superlative most recumbent)

more recumbent (comparative)
most recumbent (superlative)

From Latin present participle recumbēns, from recumbō (“I recline”).


spoiler

→ Catalan: espòiler

→ Czech: spoiler

→ French: spoiler

→ Georgian: სპოილერი (sṗoileri)

→ German: Spoiler

→ Italian: spoiler

→ Polish: spoiler

→ Portuguese: spoiler

→ Russian: спо́йлер (spójler)

→ Spanish: spoiler

→ Turkish: spoiler

→ Ukrainian: спо́йлер (spójler)

спо́йлер

automobiles: device to reduce lift and increase downforce

(automotive) A device to reduce lift and increase downforce.


BMW

So BMW has conjured a tweener — a roomier hatchback on platform shoes, with standard all-wheel drive — to attract customers who crave the 3 Series’ performance but need more utility to close the deal.

2014 February 21, Lawrence Ulrich, “Get Your $50,000 Hatchback Here”, in The New York Times:

a manufacturer of motor vehicles (Bayerische Motoren-Werke (Bavarian Motor Works)).

بِي إِم دَبُلْيُو

colloquial names and pronunciations, apart from the romanised "BMW"


BMW

A motor car manufactured by this company

A motorcycle manufactured by this company


optimist

From French optimiste, from Latin optimus (“best”) + -ist.

We are becoming as a nation, as a world, indeed, atom-conscious. Many of us are already afflicted with atomphobia, though so far it has manifested itself only in a mirage of autoaeromotive discs and a war of words between chronic optimists and empirical pessimists concerning civilization’s probable future.

1947 September 27, Richard R. Werry, “An American Beginning for International Education”, in School and Society, volume 66, number 1709, Lancaster, Pa.: The Society for the Advancement of Education, Inc., page 238:

People often call me an optimist, because I show them the enormous progress they didn't know about. That makes me angry. I'm not an optimist. That makes me sound naive. I'm a very serious “possibilist”. That’s something I made up. It means someone who neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reason, someone who constantly resists the overdramatic worldview. As a possibilist, I see all this progress, and it fills me with conviction and hope that further progress is possible. This is not optimistic. It is having a clear and reasonable idea about how things are. It is having a worldview that is constructive and useful.;

2017, Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Ronnlund, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think:

A person who expects a favourable outcome.

مُتَفَائِل

a person who expects a favourable outcome


Popemobile

From pope + -mobile. Calque of Italian papamobile.

(informal) Any of various vehicles with bulletproof glass sides used to transport the Pope through crowds safely while allowing an open view.

pousmobiel

any of various vehicles with bulletproof glass sides used to transport the Pope


Austin

From Middle English [Term?], from Anglo-Norman Aostin, Austin, a contraction of Old French Agustin, from Latin Augustīnus, from Augustus (literally “majestic”). Doublet of Augustine.

The posterists of Austin chronicled the changing social landscape and graphically redefined Texas for the rest of the country and the world […]

2015, Alan Schaefer, Joe Nick Patoski, Nels Jacobson, Homegrown: Austin Music Posters 1967 to 1982, page 17:

The capital city of Texas, USA and the county seat of Travis County; named for American empresario Stephen F. Austin.

A city, the county seat of Mower County, Minnesota; named for early settler Austin R. Nichols.

A census-designated place in Lander County, Nevada; named for early settler Alvah Austin.


choke

From Middle English choken (also cheken), from earlier acheken, from Old English āċēocian (“to choke”), probably derived from Old English ċēoce, ċēace (“jaw, cheek”), see cheek. Cognate with Icelandic kok (“throat”), koka (“to gulp”). See also achoke.


bolster

From Middle English bolster, bolstre, from Old English bolster (“pillow”), from Proto-West Germanic *bolstr, from Proto-Germanic *bulstraz (“pillow, cushion”). Cognate with Scots bowster (“bolster”), West Frisian bulster (“mattress”), Dutch bolster (“husk, shell”), German Polster (“bolster, pillow, pad”), Swedish bolster (“soft mattress, bolster”), Icelandic bólstur (“pillow”).

cog

(vehicles, agriculture) A small spacer located on top of the axle of horse-drawn wagons that gives the front wheels enough clearance to turn.


bireme

(historical, nautical) An ancient galley having two banks of oars, one above the other.


sledge

en-verb

sledge (third-person singular simple present sledges, present participle sledging, simple past and past participle sledged)

sledges (present singular third-person)
sledging (participle present)
sledged (participle past)
sledged (past)

Dialectal Dutch sleedse, from Middle Dutch sleedse, from the root of sled.

He was also to initiate me in the American pastime of sleighing, or sledging.

When "the great fen or moor" which washed the city walls on the north was frozen over, sliding, sledging, and skating were the sports of crowds.

1860, John Timbs, School-days of Eminent Men: I. Sketches of the Progress of Education in England, from the Reign of King Alfred:

2006, Godfrey (EDT) Baldacchino, Extreme Tourism: Lessons from the World's Cold Water Islands
Some of these may be closely associated with the day-to-day lifestyle of such communities — marine activities (fishing, wildlife viewing), mountain activities (abseiling, climbing, hunting) or winter sports (dog sledging).

To ride, travel with or transport in a sledge.