cattle car
Americannoun
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Railroads. stock car.
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Slang. a railroad passenger car providing little comfort and few amenities.
Etymology
Origin of cattle car
An Americanism dating back to 1860–65
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The Jewish girl and her family were first imprisoned in a ghetto on the outskirts of town and later forced onto a cattle car that took them to the Pechora concentration camp in 1941.
From Washington Times • Apr. 18, 2023
In the documentary, Clary recalled a happy childhood until he and his family was forced from their Paris apartment and put into a crowded cattle car that carried them to concentration camps.
From Seattle Times • Nov. 17, 2022
“When you get in a cattle car, you don’t really know what’s going to happen to you,” Ron said.
From Washington Post • Mar. 29, 2022
Stojka would paint the cattle car in which she was deported: a rickety thing, its rear window barred, charging into a sky burning white, pink and orange.
From New York Times • Jan. 27, 2020
My father, brother, and I were packed into a cattle car along with other male workers bound for Schindler's new factory.
From "The Boy on the Wooden Box" by Leon Leyson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
