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
Schwarz’s father, a Hungarian Jew, was 19 years old in 1944 when he was loaded onto a cattle car bound for Bergen-Belsen.
From New York Times • Feb. 24, 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
The world had become a hermetically sealed cattle car.
From "Night" by Elie Wiesel
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.
