panda car
- noun
- /ˈpændə kɑː/
- Archaic
:
coche patrulla
- Officers were seen exiting the panda car to investigate the noise.
Examples
-
The panda car pulled up beside us as we walked down the street.
-
One panda car, a red Sierra, and a blue and white milk float were lined up on the lane.
Fiction book (1995) -
Whenever there's an emergency, a panda car quickly arrives at the scene.
Synonyms
90
1.0
A car used by police to patrol streets and respond to emergencies
45
2.8
A police car that drives around an area to watch for crime
A police car that drives around streets to watch for trouble
Surface Forms
Morphology
panda + car
Although 'panda' + 'car' might suggest a car resembling a panda (black-and-white), the specific sense 'small police patrol car' is a culturally specific British term based on livery and convention rather than a straightforward compositional meaning. A B1 learner who knows the constituent words but lacks that cultural knowledge would not reliably derive the police-specific meaning.
Etymology
Panda car comes from early small police cars that had big black-and-white or blue-and-white paint patches, like a panda bear on a car. So people started to call those vehicles panda cars, and the phrase means 'a small police patrol car'.