pantechnicon

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English[edit]

WOTD – 7 January 2017
An old-fashioned horse-drawn pantechnicon from the Milestones Museum of Living History in Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK
A 1947 Bedford pantechnicon van owned by the Pickfords moving company

Etymology[edit]

From Pantechnicon, a 19th-century firm which owned a building with a Greek-style facade of Doric columns in Motcomb Street, Belgrave Square, London, UK, with a picture gallery, a furniture shop, a shop selling carriages, and a warehouse for storing customers’ furniture and other items. The firm used large horse-drawn vans to collect and deliver their customers' property, which came to be known as Pantechnicon vans.

The word was coined by the firm from pan- (“prefix meaning ‘all’”) (from Ancient Greek πᾶν (pân), neuter form of πᾶς (pâs, “all, every”)) + τεχνικόν (tekhnikón), neuter singular of τεχνικός (tekhnikós, “technical”).

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

pantechnicon (plural pantechnicons or pantechnica)

  1. (chiefly British) A building or place housing shops or stalls where all sorts of (especially exotic) manufactured articles are collected for sale. [from 19th c.]
    • 1852, John Henry Newman, “Discourse V. General Knowledge Viewed as One Philosophy.”, in Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education. Addressed to the Catholics of Dublin, Dublin: James Duffy, 7 Wellington Quay, publisher to His Grace the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, →OCLC, page 139:
      It is plain, that such writers do not rise to the very idea of a University. They consider it a sort of bazaar, or pantechnicon, in which wares of all kinds are heaped together for sale in stalls independent of each other; and that, to save the purchasers the trouble of running about from shop to shop; or an hotel or lodging house, where all professions and classes are at liberty to congregate, varying, however, according to the season, each of them strange to each, and about its own work or pleasure; […]
    • 1854, “The New Crystal Palace”, in The Practical Mechanic’s Journal, volume VI, London: […] [F]or the Proprietors by George Hebert, […], pages 225–226:
      To-day will the mighty cobweb-dome receive its last survey, previous to the contractors for the building handing it over to the painters and decorators. When these have accomplished their task, then will the walls and counters begin to receive their varied and valuable stores of natural and artificial productions. Waggon-loads upon waggon-loads must, we know, be exhausted, and pantechnica emptied, before the vast area, so delicately covered, shall cry “Enough, enough;” […]
    • 1873 February 22, William Eassie, “Reports on Sanitary Engineering in Houses, Hospitals, and Public Institutions. […] V.—Warming and Ventilation of Houses.”, in Ernest Hart, editor, The British Medical Journal: Being the Journal of the British Medical Association, volume II for 1873, London: […] [F]or the Association by Thomas Richards, […], page 208, column 1:
      We have a few economic museums, it is true; but they lack the notoriety which results from national support; and, if not carefully watched by their philanthropic promoters, these otherwise excellent places are apt to degenerate into mere advertising pantechnica.
    • 2000, Andor Gomme, Smith of Warwick: Francis Smith, Architect and Master-Builder, Shaun Tyas, →ISBN, page viii:
      Noticeably few of their buildings appear in the great eighteenth-century architectural pantechnica: Francis Smith’s prime came perhaps a little late for Vitruvius Britannicus, and in any case his houses were not of a kind to supply ammunition for Campbell’s palladianizing campaigns; by the time of Wolfe and Gandon they were very old-fashioned.
    • 2001, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History, volume 40, page 156:
      The Hyams extended their operations to London in 1845, when Lawrence Hyam became manager of the family’s pantechnica in Gracechurch Street, leaving his Bury St Edmunds shop in the management of one Joel Gale.
  2. (chiefly British) Originally pantechnicon van: a van, especially a large moving or removal van. [from 19th c.]
    • 1899 October 28, The Outlook: A Weekly Review of Politics, Art, Literature and Finance, page 400:
      For we do not employ battleships as convoys, nor even as pantechnica conveying landing parties.
    • 1911, Arnold Bennett, The Card: A Story of Adventure in the Five Towns, London: Methuen Publishing, OCLC 492063506; republished Toronto, Ont.: William Briggs, 1910s, OCLC 225424669, page 69:
      The pantechnicon was running away. It had perceived the wrath to come and was fleeing. Its guardians had evidently left it imperfectly scotched or braked, and it had got loose. […] [T]he onrush of the pantechnicon constituted a clear crisis. Lower down the gradient of Brougham Street was more dangerous, and it was within the possibilities that people inhabiting the depths of the street might find themselves pitched out of bed by the sharp corner of a pantechnicon that was determined to be a pantechnicon.
    • 1971, New Directions in Librarianship: Papers Read at the Week-end Conference of the London and Home Counties Branch of the Library Association, Held at Eastbourne, 30th April-2nd May, 1971, Under the Chairmanship of Derek Jones, Library Association, →ISBN, page 6:
      Not a day passes but some great pantechnica drive up to the door or drive down past my other window on the delivery road and drop off either £100,000 worth of Buddha or an early printed book, or a piece of furniture from a West African village.
    • 1972, William Barclay, “The Race and the Goal”, in The Letter to the Hebrews (The Daily Study Bible Series), rev. edition, Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, →ISBN, page 172:
      In the Christian life we have a handicap. If we are encircled by the greatness of the past, we are also encircled by the handicap of our own sin. No man would seek to climb Mount Everest with a pantechnicon of lumber weighing him down. If we would travel far, we must travel light.
    • a. 1977, E. C. Large, edited by Stuart Bailey and Robin Kinross, God’s Amateur: The Writing of E. C. Large, Hyphen Press, published 2008, →ISBN, page 69:
      On the 3rd of September 1939 I made my will, and since then I have discovered how happy is the state of having made a will. No pantechnica will now follow my hearse, I have taken leave of all the junk in time, perhaps only just in time.
    • 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia: Or Buried Alive: A Novel, London: Faber and Faber, →ISBN; republished in The Avignon Quintet: Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian, Quinx, London: Faber and Faber, 1992, →ISBN, page 426:
      In fact, as they later found, the auxiliary vehicle was a very large removers' van – the kind known as a pantechnicon.
    • 2008, Anthony Trethowan, “Wendy Atkinson”, in Delta Scout: Ground Coverage Operator, Johannesburg: 30° South Publishers, →ISBN, page 30:
      I later established that the R12 [Renault 12] and pantechnicon had both been driving in the direction of the roadblock, the R12 behind the pantechnicon.
    • 2009, E[dward] H[ector] Burn, J[ohn] Cartwright, “Adverse Possession and Limitation of Actions”, in Maudsley and Burn's Land Law: Cases & Materials, 9th edition, Oxford, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, pages 291–292:
      […] Bulstrode v Lambert [1953] 1 WLR 1064 […] [T]he plaintiff made use of the route with furniture vans and pantechnicons for bringing goods to the mart. The defendant objected on the ground that the parked pantechnicons interfered with his business as a cafe and car hire proprietor, but Upjohn J held that the plaintiff could use the way with pantechnicons which could park as long as was necessary for loading and unloading, this being an incident of a right of way.
    • 2010, John D. Beasley, “What a Lot of Shops and Stalls!”, in East Dulwich Remembered, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, →ISBN:
      Shinkfield's had at one time belonged to a firm called Hutchison's which did furniture removals. They stabled their horses and pantechnicon in the yard which runs behind the Lord Palmerston and the adjoining shops, with access from North Cross Road.

Synonyms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

pantechnicon — see removal van

Further reading[edit]

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