Battlewagon

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A heavily armored battleship of the dreadnought era, built with massive guns ; a large, cumbersome old automobile or heavy truck, often one considered clumsy or oversized
2. An armored capital ship from the early 1900s armed with big guns ; a big, bulky vehicle, especially an old or outsized car or truck
3. A large steel-clad battleship of the early twentieth century ; slang for a huge, heavy motor vehicle that is awkward to drive

Etymology: The battlewagon is a plain compound: "battle" plus "wagon," with no story behind the coinage. "Battle" came into English through Middle English "batayle" from Old French "bataille," itself from Late Latin "battalia," and before that from Latin "battuō," meaning to beat or strike. "Wagon" has a much older pedigree in the Germanic languages, descending from a Proto-Germanic "wagnaz" that later appeared as Middle Dutch "wagen," the direct source of the English word. Put together, the compound describes a large vehicle built for combat, and the sense is literal rather than figurative: a wagon carrying the business of battle. The word is a straightforward combination of two unrelated lineages that happened to meet in English, one through French and Latin, the other through Dutch and the older Germanic stock.

Synonyms: battleship