hot rod
41
4.3
- noun
- /hɑt rɑd/
:
hot rod
- Next Sunday we're gonna have a full afternoon of hot rod races.
- build a hot rod
- hot rod engine
- custom hot rods
A good hot rod designer will say I don't need Ford, Ford Motor Company.
- A good hot rod designer will say I don't need Ford, Ford Motor Company.
- OK, how do we get him to give me a chassis so I can build a gas monkey styled retro hot rod that's Tesla powered?
- A lot of his experience was growing up in in Modesto people, you know, the obsession over car culture and hot rods.
Examples
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I want to get a look at that sexy hot rod.
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- What kind of hot rod was that?
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We got us a big, old, red hot rod.
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Why drive a jalopy when you can have a hot rod?
Fiction book (1993) -
An icon of the 1960s, his hot rods and dream cars remain legendary.
Blog text (23) -
Many of them trace their fascination with cars back to the days when they built hot rods in their garages.
Academic text (1999) -
It should have been wild and exhilarating, six young men in a hot rod on a winding country road, inhibitions left behind like a patch of rubber from tires squealing in acceleration.
Fiction book (2000) -
The car enthusiast spent years building a custom hot rod with a powerful engine and sleek design.
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At the hot rod show, fans gathered to admire the modified vehicles on display.
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During the summer festival, we enjoyed watching the hot rod races on the local drag strip.
Synonyms
1
9.0
A classic car from the 1950s or 1960s changed to race in short straight drag races
A very fast car that owners often change to make faster
How Fast
Surface Forms
Morphology
hot + rod
The meaning 'a car modified for speed' is not directly derivable from the constituents: 'hot' has senses like 'warm' or 'popular' and 'rod' normally means a stick (and here its vehicle-related sense is non-transparent or unknown). This is a conventionalized compound whose car-specific meaning must be learned, so a B1 learner who only knows the literal parts would not reliably infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Hot rod may come from early car racers who made their cars hot (very fast) by changing metal rod parts and removing heavy pieces to make more power. So hot rod now means 'a car changed to be faster and to look special'.