Luton

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. A large town in the English county of Bedfordshire, known for its airport and car manufacturing history
2. An industrial town in southern England, located in Bedfordshire and home to an international airport
3. A town in the county of Bedfordshire in eastern England, site of a major airport and a former vehicle factory

Etymology: Luton has two unrelated lives in English. The place name comes from the River Lea, which flows past the Bedfordshire town, combined with Old English "tūn", meaning enclosure or settlement. The town's name is therefore a doublet of Leyton, the London district that shares the same river-plus-"tūn" construction, so the two places are linguistically siblings. The noun and adjective are far more recent and have nothing to do with the town. They come from the Luton van, a vehicle whose cargo box projects forward over the cab, creating a raised section above the driver's head. That projecting part is called a Luton body, and the name of the design was clipped down to the single word. A Luton van, in other words, is named for a feature of its shape, and the word has since spread to describe that feature itself.