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Glite Dictionary
hire car

hire car

1 2.7
A car you rent to use for a short time
  • noun
  • /haɪə kɑː/
  • UK
translation icon : coche de alquiler
  • She returned the hire car after her business trip, pleased with the service.

Examples

  • We spent the morning in Carpentras, then headed to Avignon TGV to return the hire car.

    Blog text (8)

  • I currently have a hire car, so I am now able to get back.

    Blog text (12)

  • This is a hired car.

    Help! (1965)

  • At five-fifteen, a hired car picked them up.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • "I've cancelled my room and cancelled the hire car for tomorrow.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • And now they'd only been in England a week, had hardly made a dent, and already the hired car had let them down.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • The weather was nice and sunny that morning, but when we went to pick up the hired car at the outside parking lot, the windscreen was covered with frost, since the weather does get much cooler during the night.

    Blog text (24)

  • Young lady, I got a hired car coming to the Willard Hotel at seven-thirty tomorrow morning to carry me back to western Virginia, and I'm going to be there.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • I have booked a hire car to explore the countryside during my vacation.

  • After landing at the airport, we picked up our hire car from the rental desk.

Synonyms

rent-a-car
vshire car
  • US
29 2.0

A car you pay to use for a short time, often when traveling

is the broader British term for any car rented for temporary use
car rental
vshire car
11 1.3

A car you rent for a short time from a company

is the British phrase that means a car rented for temporary use
self-drive
vshire car
  • UK
4.6

A car you rent and drive yourself

is the British general term for a temporarily rented car
u-drive
vshire car
8.9

A car you rent and drive yourself for a short time

is a British general term not limited to renter driving or short hire

Antonyms

unrented
3.7

A space that has no paying tenant

How Comfortable

limousine
108 3.0
taxi
382 1.0
hire car
  • UK
1 2.7

Surface Forms

hire car singular
hire cars plural
rental cars plural
rental car singular

Morphology

hire + car

The meaning 'a car that has been rented' is directly built from 'hire' (a rental) + 'car' (vehicle), so the compound/NP meaning is compositional and immediately inferable. This is a common cross-linguistic pattern (e.g. 'coche de alquiler', 'voiture de location'), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand it; the only complication is that 'hire car' is chiefly British English.

Etymology

The noun hire car comes from the verb hire, which means to pay someone for their work, and the word car. Think of hiring a person for a short time; a hire car is a car you pay to use for a short time, so it means 'a car you rent'.