flivver

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English[edit]

A flivver.

Etymology[edit]

Unknown, early 20th c.; in 1919, cartoonist Tad Dorgan claimed to have created the term in his comic strip "Judge Rummy".[1]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

flivver (plural flivvers)

  1. (colloquial, dated, Canada, US) An automobile, particularly one which is old and inexpensive.
    Synonyms: jalopy, tin Lizzie; see also Thesaurus:old car
    • 1920 July, Lyman Seelye, “Quite a Picnic”, in The Overland Monthly‎[1]:
      Billy being too poor to own a car, had hired a cheap flivver for the day, and was purposely ten minutes behind the time, but to his disgust found the procession not yet started.
    • 1998, Nigel Anthony Sellars, Oil, Wheat & Wobblies: The Industrial Workers of the World in Oklahoma, 1905-1930, University of Oklahoma Press, →ISBN, →OL, page 180:
      These workers were often joined by impoverished small farmers from Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri who pooled their resources to buy a flivver and follow the harvest into the Dakotas and Canada.

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Are Caricaturists and Cartoonists Doleful? Their Own Answer", in The New York Sun, May 25, 1919; p. 75; "and I might add that it was Judge Rummy who first called the Ford car a flivver"
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