Batmobile

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The specially equipped fictional automobile driven by the superhero Batman in comic books and films, known for its gadgets and high-tech features
2. A customized crime-fighting car of the comic book hero Batman, outfitted with advanced weaponry and gadgets for pursuing villains
3. The high-tech vehicle associated with the masked vigilante Batman, a fictional car famous for its gadgets and dramatic design

Etymology: The Batmobile is the car Batman drives in his comic books and films, and its name is a plain compound: "bat" joined to "-mobile," a combining form taken from "automobile." The pattern is older than the caped crusader. "Mobile" had been clipped from "automobile" and the suffix was attached to many everyday nouns, so a vehicle named after an animal or a person was an easy coinage. The word's second life is as a verb, and it comes from a specific detail. The car in the 1989 film had retractable shielding that could be deployed to protect its occupants, and that feature gave rise to a sense of the word describing the act of raising such protection. Print usage of the word appeared in the mid-1990s, when technology writers in Wired and Tech Monitor were collecting new computing jargon.