secondhand car
1
1.6
- noun
- /ˈsɛkəndˌhænd kɑr/
:
coche de segunda mano
- After searching for weeks, I finally found a reliable secondhand car within my budget.
- buy a secondhand car
Examples
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I saved money by buying a secondhand car instead of a new one.
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A used car salesman is asked to leave a legitimate secondhand car at a certain place with the keys under the mat.
Fiction book (1994) -
Think of it selling a secondhand car.
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Even secondhand cars were hard to find after the war.
Fiction book (1996) -
So I bought this secondhand car and trailer.
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Since the class is experimental, an unpretentious secondhand car was purchased, but it served its purpose very well.
Academic text (1995) -
When he enlisted, a few days after Pearl Harbor, what he knew about, more than anything else, was secondhand cars.
Fiction book (2000) -
They were a new population, in town every third week of July; the plates on their large secondhand cars read Ohio, Indiana, and Florida.
Academic text (1999) -
So it's open and shut that I'll drive a secondhand car all my days, at the end of which the town will bury me from a secondhand hearse, no doubt, with used flowers.
Fiction book (1991) -
Furnishings, bar dues, 750 for a fax machine, 400 for a lease on a computer, a down payment on a new secondhand car, and we're broke again.
Synonyms
52
1.0
A car that someone else owned before and is not new
How New
1
1.6
52
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a car that has been previously owned' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'secondhand' (used/previously owned) with 'car' (motor vehicle). This is a straightforward compositional phrase found across languages and should be immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Secondhand car comes from the simple picture of an item moving into a second person's hand, meaning it was 'owned' before. So it means a car that someone else already 'owned', not 'new'.