police car
90
1.0
- noun
- /pəˈlis kɑr/
:
coche de policía
- An ambulance had just driven away, and a police car was parked at the curb.
- flashing police car
- police car lights
- police car crashed
No more than two minutes later, a police car starts driving down the street.
- No more than two minutes later, a police car starts driving down the street.
- And then a police car pulls up outside.
- When you arrive home, the four police cars are gone.
- She says the officers drove the police cars full speed into the crowd.
- The policeman pushed me in in this police car and who's in the car with me?
- I saw the, it was just, there was a police car on fire on both ends of my street.
- So as we're kind of driving back around town, through the town to go to find the mayor, does a police car not come screeching in front of us?
- And, you know, they'll take potshots and stuff at a fire truck going down the street or a police car.
- And they are forcing me out of my bedroom, down the stairs and out of the house into a police car.
- What happened was a Veyron has been pulled over on Hyde Park Corner by two police cars and the car spotters are going berserk.
- And then the other footage, the part that was released first is what we see through the cell phone camera where we see George Floyd on the ground right outside the police car.
- People think you have to explain why people are like, you know, crashing police car windows with a bat.
Examples
-
There are now two police cars behind them about half a mile back.
Fiction book (1991) -
As I walked home, a police car drove past with its sirens blaring.
-
No more than two minutes later, a police car starts driving down the street.
-
So, so here obviously you have a police car pulled over, probably pulled over someone there.
-
I would get in the police car.
-
When you arrive home, the four police cars are gone.
-
And then a police car pulls up outside.
-
Like a police car parked on the side of the road and a cop standing there.
-
There is a police car at the end of the driveway.
-
What's with all the police cars in the neighborhood?
Synonyms
45
2.8
A police car that drives around an area to watch for crime
40
2.7
A car police use while patrolling, usually with a radio
32
3.2
A police car that patrols streets
9
3.0
A car that police officers use for patrolling, often with lights and a siren
A police car that drives around streets to watch for trouble
How Equipped
- Specialized
22
3.4
90
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a car used by the police' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'police' (the law-enforcement organization) with 'car' (a motor vehicle), forming a standard noun-noun compound that denotes a vehicle belonging to or used by police. This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows regular English compounding rules, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Police car is simply the words police + car. The name came when officers stopped using horses and began using motor cars to drive the streets and watch for trouble. So, police car means 'a car used by the police'.