Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🚗 A trial car ride 🚗 To try a car 🧪 To try a product
to test drive

to test drive

5 3.2
To try a product or service for a short time to see if you like it
  • phrasal verb
  • /tɛst draɪv/
translation icon : probar
  • Not only did 500 people visit the Plug-In Day event in Los Angeles, but organizers logged more than 300 test drives in just four hours.
  • give it a test drive
  • take a test drive
  • test-drive a new

So that's what I test drive exactly what you say.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • Well, we've never run a configuration like this ballot, so I thought I'd give it a test drive.

    Man of the Year (2006)

  • So if you'd like to test drive our private podcast, you can join for seven days for free.

    The Minimalists

  • Make sure that when you find people that you are going to go into business with or do stuff with you test drive them first.

  • Please take a minute and give the new site a test drive.

    Blog text (19)

  • We can give it a test drive if you're not sure. "Yeah.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • There's even a free version you can test drive.

    Blog text (20)

  • What I'm more excited for is the fact she's going to let me test drive her Tesla.

  • Because recently the folks at NASA offered to let me test drive the prototype of their new Mars Rover before they send it to Mars.

  • Our CTO, Deepak Kumar, and his Dev Team, Business Team, and our solutions engineers partnered with the client so they could test drive the technology and determine if OneSite really delivered what we promised.

    Blog text (22)

  • Before purchasing the new electric car, she decided to test drive it to see how it felt on the road.

Synonyms

to try
vsto test drive
∞ 1.0

To test something to see if it works

is specifically about assessing before purchase or commitment
to try out
vsto test drive
229 2.8

To test something to see how it works

focuses on assessment prior to buying or committing
to experiment
vsto test drive
170 3.5

To try something new to see what effect it has

focuses on judging suitability for purchase rather than discovery
to take for a spin
vsto test drive
  • Informal
23 4.2

To test a car or gadget by using it for a short time

suggests evaluation before purchase rather than mere curiosity
to trial
vsto test drive
12 3.3

To test something to see how well it works

is about evaluating before purchase or commitment
to demo
vsto test drive
8 3.8

To show how a product or process works to other people

is a private hands-on evaluation for buying or committing
to kick the tires
vsto test drive
  • Informal
3 6.7

To look at and try something before you decide to buy or use it

means a practical hands-on check aimed at decision time
to pretest
vsto test drive
1 3.9

To test something before its main use to find problems and make sure it works

is about evaluating before buying, not only problem identification

How Thorough

to test drive
5 3.2
to try
∞ 1.0
to sample
95 2.6

Surface Forms

test drive infinitive
test drove past
test driven past participle
test driving present participle
test drives third person singular

Morphology

test + drive

The core sense (to drive something as a test) is directly compositional from 'test' + 'drive' and a B1 learner would likely infer the meaning when applied to cars. However, its extended, metaphorical use meaning 'try out' for non-driving products or services is a semantic generalization that is not fully predictable from the constituents alone, so the transparency is partial.

Etymology

Test drive (verb, figurative) borrows the car image: it paints the picture of using something in real life to test it, so the phrase now means 'to try out' a product or service before you decide.