sleeping car
1
3.1
- noun
- /ˈsliːpɪŋ kɑːr/
:
coche cama
- One of the best-known planned model communities in the United States was Pullman, Illinois, constructed by industrialist George M. Pullman to accommodate his sleeping-car factory and its employees.
- sleeping car porter
- sleeping car service
- Pullman sleeping car
Examples
-
The sleeping car is equipped with cozy beds, allowing passengers to sleep peacefully during long journeys.
-
We were in luck: the sleeping car porter with the droopy eye was standing right outside our car.
Fiction book (1990) -
Did you get us one of those sleeping cars?
Fiction book (1990) -
Have you got the reservations for the sleeping car?
-
"It's only fair I should be the one to tip the sleeping car porter, seeing as it's my son we came to visit."
Fiction book (1990) -
About eight o'clock, the sleeping car porter came to open up our beds.
Fiction book (1990) -
Sleeping car passengers make up only about 15% of all long-distance riders, but provide 35% of the revenues.
Blog text (7) -
This train has reserved coaches, dining cars and sleeping cars, designated as 494, 493, 492, 491 and 490.
-
With the westward advance of the railroads and the advent in 1857 of the Pullman sleeping car, hundreds of professional bands toured the country, igniting America's love for these ensembles.
Academic text (2008) -
On our trip across the country, we decided to book a sleeping car to ensure a comfortable night's rest on the train.
Synonyms
4
4.4
A train car with beds for sleeping on overnight trips
A train car with beds for overnight travel
A luxury train car with beds and other comforts
How Comfortable
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is transparently compositional: 'sleeping' (for sleeping / providing beds) modifies 'car' (a rail vehicle), so it denotes a railway vehicle equipped for sleeping. This adjective+noun pattern is common and has direct equivalents in many languages (e.g., French voiture-lit, Spanish coche-cama), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Sleeping car comes from trains that had a special car with 'beds' so people could be sleeping while they traveled at night. That's why sleeping car means 'a train car with beds' for overnight travel.