wagon
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wagon¹
- /ˈwæɡən/ US, UK
- [ˈwæɡən] ~ [ˈwæɡn̩] US, UK
- /ˈwaɡən/ British, Northern England, Scotland
- [ˈwaɡən] ~ [ˈwaɡn̩] British, Northern England, Scotland
- /ˈwæːɡən/
- [ˈwæːɡən] ~ [ˈwæːɡn̩]
- /ˈwɛɡən/ New Zealand
- [ˈwɛɡən] ~ [ˈwɛɡn̩] New Zealand
- /ˈweɪɡən/
- [ˈweɪ̯ɡən] ~ [ˈweɪ̯ɡn̩]
Rhymes with -æɡən
Where it comes from
Borrowed from Middle Dutch wagen, from Old Dutch *wagan, from Proto-West Germanic *wagn, from Proto-Germanic *wagnaz (“wagon”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to transport”). Generally displaced native cognate wain, from Old English wæġn, of which it is a doublet. Related also to way, weigh.
Sense 8 (“woman of loose morals; obnoxious woman”) is probably a derogatory and jocular reference to a woman being “ridden”, that is, mounted for the purpose of sexual intercourse.
The verb is derived from the noun.
noun wagons · waggon
- A heavier four-wheeled (normally horse-drawn) vehicle designed to carry goods (or sometimes people). These wagons and pack-mules will include transportation for all personal baggage, mess chests, cooking utensils, desks, papers, &c.
- Abbreviation of toy wagon; A child's riding toy, with the same structure as a wagon (sense 1), pulled or steered by a long handle attached to the front. […] [Debra] Van Ausdale transcribes an exchange among two white girls (both aged four) and one Asian girl (age three) who are playing with a wagon. One of the white girls is pulling the other children. When the wagon gets stuck the Asian girl jumps out to help pull. The white girl responds, "No, no.
- A shopping cart.
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A vehicle (wagon) designed to transport goods or people on railway.
Various methods have been suggested for effecting this transfer by a bodily removal of whole wagons; either by lifting the bodies from one set of wheels to another, or transferring the wagons, wheels and all, to some kind of truck; but practically these projects wholly fail. […] It is calculated tha
Similar: railroad car, car, railway wagon, railway carriage, carriage, railtruck, truck, coach
- Ellipsis of dinner wagon (“set of light shelves mounted on castors so that it can be pushed around a dining room and used for serving”). With the important exception of religious myths, the hybridized and grafted Marxist myths are like whole-dessert wagons with almost everybody's favorite sweets—all of them with no calories (costs) and chock-full of nutrients (benefits) guaranteeing everything good for almost everyone, except the few
- Ellipsis of paddy wagon (“police van for transporting prisoners”). I began as a patrol officer, working the wagon, squad car, and three-wheelers until 1963, when I took the detective exam.
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Ellipsis of station wagon (“type of automobile”); (occasionally, loosely) any car, van, or light truck.
The woman had been photographed in the driver's seat of a late-model Jeep wagon; walking across what appeared to be a large parking lot; inside her kitchen and her bedroom, blissfully unaware that her privacy was being invaded by binoculars and telephoto lenses in the hands of a slob like Thigpen.
Similar: estate
-
A woman of loose morals, a promiscuous woman, a slapper.
[…] I was in a field last week with Ursula Brogan behind the football pitch. We followed Cissy Caffery there and two boys from the secondary. She’s a wagon. She did it with them one after the other, and we watched.
Similar: NB: All terms are usually pejorative unless stated otherwise., 304, alley cat, alleycat, amorette, amoret, amorosa, article, Athanasian wench, blowsabella, bop, chippy
- An obnoxious woman; a bitch; a cow. —Don’t know. —She hates us. It’s prob’ly cos Daddy called her a wagon at tha’ meetin’. / Sharon laughed. She got out of bed. / —He didn’t really call Miss O’Keefe a wagon, she told Tracy. —He was only messin’ with yeh.
- A kind of prefix used in de Bruijn notation.
- Buttocks.
verb wagons · wagoning · wagonning · wagoned · wagonned
- To load into a wagon in preparation for transportation; to transport by means of a wagon. The ore is firſt waggoned to the river, a quarter of a mile, then laden on board of canoes, and carried acroſs the river, which is there about 200 yards wide, and then again taken into waggons and carried to he furnace.
- To travel in a wagon. [T]he toll was taken off freight on ninety miles of the canal between Huntingdon and Duncan's Island, and subsequently off passengers, to enable the companies to meet the unexpected and heavy expense necessarily incurred by staging and wagoning across the breach in the line.
Wagon²
Where it comes from
Derived either as a synonym of Wain, i.e. Charles' Wain, or directly from the wagonlike shape of the constellation. Compare also the synonym Northern Waggoner.
See wagon and wain.
proper noun the Wagon · Waggon
-
A bright circumpolar asterism of the northern sky, said to resemble a ladle or cart. It is part of the constellation Ursa Major and includes the stars Mizar, Dubhe, and Alkaid.
Similar: Big Dipper, Plough, Charles' Wain, Drinking Gourd, Northern Ladle, Northern Waggoner, Wain, Great Wagon, Bandwagon, Saptarishi, Saucepan, triones
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: waggon, beach wagon, black maria, paddy wagon, station wagon, beach waggon, coaster wagon, patrol wagon, police van, police wagon, station waggon, cart, wheelbarrow, carriages, chariot, coach
Translations
Every language
noun child's riding toy
| Français | chariot |
|---|---|
| Deutsch | Bollerwagen |
| Русский | коля́ска koljáska, де́тская коля́ска détskaja koljáska |
noun four-wheeled cart for hauling loads — see also cart, carriage
| Español | carro, coche, carreta, carromato, carroza, galera |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 짐마차 jimmacha |
| 日本語 | 荷馬車 nibasha |
| 中文 | 運貨馬車 /运货马车 yùnhuòmǎchē, 車皮 /车皮 chēpí |
| Português | carro, carroça, vagão |
| Français | charrette |
| Deutsch | Wagen |
| Italiano | carro |
| Ελληνικά | άμαξα ámaxa, βαγόνι vagóni |
| Română | car, căruță |
| Русский | теле́га teléga, теле́жка teléžka, пово́зка povózka, воз voz, фурго́н furgón |
| العربية | عَرَبَة ʕaraba |
Talk about this word "wagon." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/wagon. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. wagon. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/wagon "wagon." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/wagon.Cite this
@misc{wagon_2026,
title = {wagon},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/wagon},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
