automobile

automobile — noun

1. a road vehicle, usually with four wheels and an engine, built to carry a small n

1.nounB1
Definition

a road vehicle, usually with four wheels and an engine, built to carry a small number of people from one place to another.

Example

Henry Ford built his first automobile in a small workshop behind his house.

common collocation: build / make an automobile

The museum in Detroit displays automobiles from the early 1900s, including a shiny black Model T.

Common collocations
  • build an automobile
  • drive an automobile
  • produce automobiles
  • the automobile industry
  • early automobiles
Synonyms
  • car

    the everyday word; works in all registers

  • motorcar

    older British term, now sounds dated

  • vehicle

    broader — includes trucks, buses, motorcycles

Usage Note

Mainly American English and noticeably more formal than 'car'. Common in news writing, industry reports, and historical contexts; in everyday speech most Americans simply say 'car'. British speakers rarely use this word at all.

Common Mistakes

Let's take the automobile to the supermarket.
Let's take the car to the supermarket.
in everyday conversation 'car' sounds natural; 'automobile' feels stiff or old-fashioned.
I drive an automobile to work every morning.
I drive to work every morning.' or 'I drive my car to work every morning.
keep 'automobile' for written or formal contexts.

automobile — adjective

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four words can refer to a four-wheeled passenger road vehicle, but they sit at very different points on the register and breadth scales. 'Car' is the everyday choice for any speaker of English: it works in conversation, news, advertising, and writing alike. 'Automobile' is mainly American and noticeably formal; you meet it in industry reports, legal documents, and historical writing ('the early automobile'), but it sounds stiff in chat. 'Motorcar' is the older British equivalent and now feels almost vintage, often used to evoke the early twentieth century. 'Vehicle' is the broadest of the four — it covers trucks, vans, motorcycles, and buses, not just passenger cars, so it appears in traffic laws and rental policies. A simple test: at home you 'wash the car'; at work a journalist writes about 'the automobile industry'; a police officer reports 'a stolen vehicle'.

automobile ↗car ↗vehicle ↗motorcar

Common collocations

Nouns

  • automobile industry
  • automobile manufacturer
  • automobile sales
  • automobile parts
  • automobile dealer
  • automobile engineer

Phrases

  • the rise of the automobile
  • the age of the automobile
  • the early automobile

Prepositions

  • by automobile
  • in an automobile

Etymology

GreekLatinFrenchEnglish

Borrowed into English from French 'automobile' in the late 1800s, just as the first self-powered carriages were appearing on European roads. The French word was built from two Greek and Latin pieces: 'auto-' meaning 'self', and '-mobile' from Latin 'mobilis' meaning 'movable'. The whole word literally describes a thing that moves itself — a striking idea at a time when every other vehicle was pulled by a horse. English first used it as an adjective, then quickly adopted it as a noun for the new machines.