Vehicle Meaning
/ˈviː.ɪ.kəl/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA conveyance: a spacious device for carrying or transporting substances, objects, people or animals.
nounA guided or aimed mobile object or apparatus, especially if intended or used as a weapon.
Sentence Examples
Rigid wheels give sufficient stability to a low-speed vehicle steered by outside forces.
The police pursued the stolen vehicle along the motorway.
CEFR Practice Quiz
To travel on land, you need a motor ____ such as a car or bus.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The company owns several large ____ that are used to transport products to customers all over the local area today.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from French véhicule, from Latin vehiculum (“a carriage, conveyance”), from vehō, vehere (“to carry”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"But electric vehicles and the batteries that made them run became ensnared in corporate scandals, fraud, and monopolistic corruption that shook the confidence of the nation and inspired automotive upstarts."
— 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion:
"Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale.[…]Rock-filled torrents smashed vehicles and homes, burying victims under rubble and sludge."
— 2013 June 29, “High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, archived from the original on 03 Apr 2021, page 28:
"Both vehicle types will feed that data into artificial intelligence systems that, having been trained through so-called machine learning, will identify, characterize and evaluate external phenomena."
— 2020 January 1, Adam Hadhazy, “Achieving autonomy”, in Aerospace America, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2025:
"In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way."
— 2013 June 7, Ed Pilkington, “‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, archived from the original on 13 Aug 2025, page 6:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
To travel on land, you need a motor ____ such as a car or bus.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The company owns several large ____ that are used to transport products to customers all over the local area today.