van

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A covered road vehicle, larger than a car, used for carrying goods or groups of people.

   The workers loaded their tools into the back of the van.

2. 2
   verb

   To carry something or someone in a van.

   The horses were vanned to the race track early in the morning.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Van has two distinct histories. In the military sense, it is a 17th-century shortening of vanguard, from French avan(t)guard, “the foremost division of an army.” The vehicle term is an early 19th-century shortening of caravan, which came through French from Persian kārwān; caravan had already developed the sense “covered wagon” in the late 17th century.

From Turkish Van, from Ottoman Turkish وان (Van), from Middle Armenian Վան (Van).

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary