devil wagon
1
9.9
- noun
- Slang
:
carro diablo
- That devil wagon zoomed past us on the highway!
Examples
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The kids love riding the devil wagon at the fair.
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They warned us not to ride the devil wagon without helmets or safety gear.
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He sped through the neighborhood in his old devil wagon, startling everyone he passed.
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The kids built a makeshift devil wagon and took turns racing down the driveway.
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The racing enthusiast bought a devil wagon to compete in the annual street race.
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He calls his old sports car a devil wagon because it goes so fast on the highway.
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Whenever I see that devil wagon zooming past me, I can hardly believe how reckless the driver is.
Synonyms
1
8.8
A person or thing that is very active, hard to control and often aggressive
Antonyms
How Reckless
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound combines 'devil' (danger/evil) with 'wagon' (vehicle), so a learner who knows both words can infer a vehicle with a negative or dangerous quality. However, the specific slang sense 'a vehicle driven recklessly or very fast' is a metaphorical, culture-specific extension and not fully predictable from the parts, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Devil wagon may come from images of loud, fast vehicles that looked as if they were driven by the devil. The word devil gives the idea of something wild or dangerous and wagon is an old word for a vehicle, so the phrase came to mean 'a car or ride that moves dangerously fast'.