touring car
- noun
- Archaic
- You saw lots of cars out front: jalopies, roadsters, coupes, and big touring cars with side curtains.
- touring car champion
- an old touring car
- a 20-horsepower touring car
Examples
-
The whole family piled into our old touring car and drove across the country to visit relatives.
-
Harry parked his touring car in front of the building, ready for their weekend getaway.
-
This luxury touring car has launch control.
-
It's a touring car that is fast and powerful as any racing car.
-
When he came to visit his mother, the men from Colorado Street would stand on the corner and guess how much his long touring car cost.
Fiction book (1995) -
A touring car pulls up right on the tracks behind the caboose as the train starts to pull away.
Fiction book (1997) -
Verna is getting into the elegant black touring car that waits at the bottom of the hill.
Fiction book (1990) -
During the winter months, her brother took her in that fifteen-year-old touring car of theirs, with its steering wheel on the wrong side and with isinglass side-curtains that were never taken down, to deliver these flowers to her customers.
Fiction book (1996) -
Verna is getting into the elegant black touring car that waits at the bottom of the hill for their road trip.
Synonyms
A car with a roof that folds back
An open two-seat car for driving for fun, often with a folding rear seat
A four-wheeled vehicle with a folding roof, like a carriage pulled by horses
An old open car that seats four people and has a folding roof
A vehicle like a car made for long comfortable trips
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a car used for touring' is directly derivable from combining 'tour' (to travel/visit places) with 'car' (a passenger vehicle); the noun phrase denotes a vehicle for touring. Specific historical details (open body, folding top) are lexical refinements, but a B1 learner who knows both constituents will grasp the general compositional meaning.
Etymology
Touring car comes from early cars made for touring, which means going on long trips, and they had an open body with a folding roof so people could enjoy the view. Because these cars were large and made for travel, touring car now means 'a large open automobile with a folding top'.