Definition
nounA building (or section of a building) used to store a car or cars, tools and other miscellaneous items.
nounA place where cars are serviced and repaired.
Sentence Examples
The Longs are having a garage sale tomorrow.
Can you envisage Tom working in a garage?
He parked his new car in the garage to protect it from the rain.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from French garage (“keeping under cover, protection, shelter”), derivative of French garer (“to keep under cover, dock, shunt, guard, keep”), from Middle French garer, garrer, guerrer; partly from Old French garir, warir (from Old Frankish *warjan); and partly from Old French varer (“to fight, defend oneself, protect”), from Old Norse varask (“to defend oneself”), reflexive of vara (“to ware, watch out, defend”); both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *warjaną (“to defend, ward off”), *warōną (“to watch, protect”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to close, cover, protect, save, defend”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"A little further on, to the right, was a large garage, where the charabancs stood, half in and half out of the yard."
— 1931, Francis Beeding, “2/2”, in Death Walks in Eastrepps:
"The highway to the East Coast which ran through the borough of Ebbfield had always been a main road and even now, despite the vast garages, the pylons and the gaily painted factory glasshouses which had sprung up beside it, there still remained an occasional trace of past cultures."
— 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
"Meanwhile the chauffeur who had driven them there—a subordinate member of the band—had garaged his car and was loitering about the drive in the expectation of further instructions."
— 1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London:
"I garaged the car and went to Aunt Dahlia's sanctum to ascertain whether she had cooled off at all since I had left her, for I was still anxious about that blood pressure of hers."
— 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XIX, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:
"In large cities cars are nuisances unless you have enough money to afford to garage the beasts."
— 1979 April 28, Nancy Walker, “A Case of Mistaken Identity”, in Gay Community News, page 19: