caboose

American  

[kuh-boos] / kəˈbus /

noun

cabooses plural

1. a car on a freight train, used chiefly as the crew's quarters and usually attached to the rear of the train.

2. British. a kitchen on the deck of a ship; galley.

3. Slang. the buttocks.

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caboose British  

/ kəˈbuːs /

noun

1. informal short for calaboose

2. railways a guard's van, esp one with sleeping and eating facilities for the train crew

3. nautical

   1. a deckhouse for a galley aboard ship or formerly in Canada, on a lumber raft

   2. the galley itself

4. 1. a mobile bunkhouse used by lumbermen, etc

   2. an insulated cabin on runners, equipped with a stove

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• cabooses
  plural

Etymology

Origin of caboose

1740–50; < early modern Dutch cabūse ( Dutch kabuis ) ship's galley, storeroom; compare Low German kabuus, kabüse, Middle Low German kabuse booth, shed; further origin uncertain

Explanation

A caboose is a train car that is usually at the end. If you are pulling up the rear, you could call yourself the caboose. The engine is the first car on a freight train, and the last car is usually the caboose. Besides being last, the other feature of a caboose is its use by the crew. Most of a freight train will be filled with whatever cargo they're transporting, and they need to use that space as efficiently as possible. The caboose is where the crew can hang out during the trip. If there's a kitchen on the train, it will usually be in the caboose.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

caboose cabooses

When I was a teenager, my best friend’s mom had a caboose baby, her fourth child, at 42.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026

The band has kicked off previous albums in New York with great fanfare, once rolling down Fifth Avenue on a flatbed truck and on another occasion riding on a caboose into Grand Central Terminal.

From Reuters ● Oct. 20, 2023

“If disability is on the caboose of the writing chain, we will be the first people to get pushed out of jobs,” he tells The Times.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2023

When it comes to funding, "we're always the caboose of the train," Clegg said of his county.

From Salon ● Dec. 14, 2022

When Ben saw his eye depart from the center of action, he stepped backward, like a caboose uncoupling from another car.

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy

And now, not only do we know they risked riders’ lives for years, but the swift action to cover their cabooses cripples the region’s infrastructure.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 21, 2021

Somewhere on Frankfort Avenue live dinosaurs, buffalo, long-horned cattle, steam engines and cabooses.

From Washington Times ● Sep. 18, 2016

In the long run, though, two-man crews may become another relic of the industry, “The same way nobody still thinks we need cabooses on the back of trains,” said Grady Cothen, former administrator at the FRA.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2016

Tents first started popping up in the 1940s, and then trailers — the Doughans’ among them — and even five cabooses from the Long Island Rail Road.

From New York Times ● Aug. 25, 2014

There is a tradition in Halifax that the cabooses had to be taken off the ships, and ranged along the principal street, in order to shelter these unfortunates during the winter.

From The United Empire Loyalists : A Chronicle of the Great Migration by Wallace, W. Stewart (William Stewart)

Related Words

• box
• camp
• chalet
• compartment
• cottage
• home
• hut
• lodge
• room
• shack
• shanty
• shed
• shelter