police van
- noun
- /pəˈlis væn/
- Officers placed the man in the back of a police van and drove off to applause from the crowd.
- police van driver
- armored police van
- police van transporting
The old, before the today's bully vans, it was the old, they called it a Black Mariah was a blue police van.
- The old, before the today's bully vans, it was the old, they called it a Black Mariah was a blue police van.
- The blue Rove of the police van, sirens pulsing through the shattered curtains.
- And I keep referring back to this police van that was, you know, torched in in Brooklyn.
- So anyway, my guys have have kind of corralled me and there's a police van.
- But then he's looked and seen the police van and the police van has just shook his head and drove off.
Examples
-
Suddenly, sirens are heard as a police van pulls up.
Fiction book (1991) -
After picking up Gray, the police van made five stops en route to the Western District police station.
-
Now get over to the police van.
-
The officers invited him into the police van, where they checked his driving license and car registration.
Blog text (10) -
Two police vans and a police communication center bus parked off the road.
Blog text (14) -
The police clear the counter of protestors and herd them into a police van.
Fiction book (2002) -
We heard sirens in the near distance and saw a police van drive by with the lights blaring.
Blog text (2) -
He allows himself to be chauffeured to the penitentiary in the police van.
Academic text (1994) -
David, our prosecutor, walked over and told us that the police van transporting Carlos to court was stuck in traffic, but should arrive shortly after the recess.
Fiction book (2000) -
Many of the witnesses were transported in police vans to headquarters for questioning.
Synonyms
A van used by police to carry prisoners to a station
A police van that carries prisoners
A van police use to carry people they arrest
A van used by police to carry arrested people
A police van used to carry prisoners
How Secure
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a van used by the police' is directly and compositionally derived from the constituents 'police' (law-enforcement organization) + 'van' (a type of vehicle). This simple noun-noun combination follows regular, cross-linguistic compounding patterns and would be immediately clear to a B1 learner who knows both words.
Etymology
Police van comes from a simple image: police officers loading arrested people into a van with a locked back. So it means 'a van used by the police to transport prisoners or detainees'.