car
noun
an automobile.
car
1 American
[kahr]
/ kɑr /
noun
-
cars
plural
-
an automobile.
-
a vehicle running on rails, as a streetcar or railroad car.
-
the part of an elevator, balloon, modern airship, etc., that carries the passengers, freight, etc.
-
British Dialect. any wheeled vehicle, as a farm cart or wagon.
-
Literary. a chariot, as of war or triumph.
-
Archaic. cart; carriage.
car
2
American
[kahr]
/ kɑr /
CAR
3
American
car.
4
American
abbreviation
car
1
British
/ kɑː /
noun
-
-
Also called: motorcar, automobile. a self-propelled road vehicle designed to carry passengers, esp one with four wheels that is powered by an internal-combustion engine
-
( as modifier )
car coat
-
-
a conveyance for passengers, freight, etc, such as a cable car or the carrier of an airship or balloon
-
a railway vehicle for passengers only, such as a sleeping car or buffet car
-
a railway carriage or van
-
the enclosed platform of a lift
-
a poetic word for chariot
CAR
2
British
abbreviation
Usage
What else does car mean? To most of us on the outside, a car is a vehicle with a motor and four wheels. But in prison slang, your car is your crew, especially when it comes to drugs, protection, and money-making.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of car1
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English carre, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin carra (feminine singular), from Latin, neuter plural of carrum, variant of carrus “baggage cart, freight wagon,” from Gaulish; akin to Old Irish carr “wheeled vehicle”
Origin of car2
First recorded in 1375–1425; Middle English ( Scots ), from Scots Gaelic ceàrr “false, left, wrong”
Origin of CAR3
First recorded in 1980–85
Explanation
Your car is your automobile, your wheels, your vehicle. A car can also be another kind of moving compartment — such as a railroad car, a cable car, or a trolley car. The word car has been around much longer than the automobile. It comes from the Latin carrus, a kind of wagon the Romans discovered from the Gauls, a European people the Romans conquered. It shows up in Italian and Spanish (carro, meaning "a car or a cart," and it also survives in various forms in modern Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, German, and other languages. When you’re listening to your engine purr, you can thank the Gauls. And the Romans.
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.
See Examples For:
Nearly a decade after Tesla first announced its second-generation Roadster, the company debuted the car in a flashy demo that seemed to challenge the laws of physics.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2026
And, the defining feature, cold-gas rocket thrusters that jumped the car over a line of vehicles while doing a midair barrel roll.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
"No personal data related to our rentals is shared with car manufacturers, our owners or other third parties without explicit legal grounds," he added, without specifying whether the onboard videos may have been transferred.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2026
Now nearly a third of all car sales are Chinese EVs.
From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026
She signals for the cab driver to wait and tells me to get out of the car.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
Across these experiments, the PPARD-activated CAR T cells slowed or stopped tumor growth.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026
Investment by suppliers plunged from more than $8 billion in the first quarter of 2025 to around $600 million in the two subsequent quarters before recovering somewhat, according to CAR data.
From Barron's ● Oct. 4, 2026
In 2025, during a clinical trial of CAR T-cell therapy, a technique currently used to treat some types of leukaemia and lymphoma, Maya developed a brain injury which Dellanie said left her "profoundly disabled".
From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2026
The approach resembles CAR T-cell therapy, but there is an important difference.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 11, 2026
The text was all in screaming caps: CAR COMING!
From "Shelter (Book One): A Mickey Bolitar Novel" by Harlan Coben
As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, Noah said, “And there’s my dad’s car. … And there he is walking in with Pamela.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
“I don’t have any assets. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a phone.”
From Slate ● Sep. 9, 2026
“With Lucid, you collect so much intelligent information from the car. And now here we are collecting information about the health of a member and leveraging that. There’s a lot of resemblances,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
"It slows you down and you get to see places you just wouldn't see in a car. We've seen places we just never would have dreamed of stopping at before."
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
“I saw the house, the car. And...I thought it was you, I thought I saw...”
From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez
Equipped with advanced perception systems that give way to merging cars and detect hazards early, these autonomous vehicles are suited to handle repetitive depot-to-depot routes known as the middle mile.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
“This car, like most exotic cars, does not pay the bills,” Brauer said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2026
The recordings showed who was getting in and out of the cars, the routes taken and even the codes used to open gates or doors to military facilities.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2026
That was due to Tesla’s cost advantage when it came to making cars and his boasts about plans to reduce them further.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
“I know there aren’t tons of cars in Churchill, but you still have to pay attention.”
From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
