Why do the British call the back of a car the boot?
The word "boot"(which is commonly used by the English), goes back to 18th century horse-drawn carriages where the coachman sat on a chest, which was used to store, among other things, his boots. This storage space came to be termed as the "boot locker", which soon became the "boot".
It goes all the way back to when horse-drawn carriages were the norm. The driver would sit on a chest that held his belongings, including – yes – his boots. The original name was "the boot locker", which in time became shortened to just "the boot."
In British English, the boot of a car is the covered space, usually at the back, where you put things such as luggage or shopping. Is the boot open? In American English, this part of a car is called the trunk. We put our bags in the trunk.
Both the terms refer to the same part of the car in different regions. In the United States, it's commonly called the "car trunk," while in the United Kingdom and many other English-speaking countries, it's known as the "car boot."
A boot was originally a 'fixed external step of a coach', and this was later extended to mean the 'low outside compartment used for stowing luggage'. This was later transferred to cars in Britain where it became the equivalent of North American trunk. As 'a type of mechanical covering device', bonnet dates from 1862.
The part of the car used to hold items you won't need access to without stopping the vehicle is called the boot in the UK, and the trunk in the US. These words may be different, but their meaning is incredibly similar when taken back to their origins.
A driveway (also called drive in UK English) is a type of private road for local access to one or a small group of structures, and is owned and maintained by an individual or group.
We British only use the term “traffic circle” to describe giratory intersections with traffic lights, such as the one at Bignells Corner, South Mimms, or the one at Haydock Island, Newton-le-Willows. Otherwise they are called roundabouts.
mackintosh, waterproof outercoat or raincoat, named after a Scottish chemist, Charles Macintosh (1766–1843), who invented the waterproof material that bears his name. The fabric used for a mackintosh was made waterproof by cementing two thicknesses of it together with rubber dissolved in a coal-tar naphtha solution.
To boot is ideal for adding something extra to a statement, as it essentially means "on top of that." You might describe your best friend by saying, "She's so funny, and incredibly loyal to boot." The term comes from the Old English to bote, which was once used as part of a legal term in English law, meaning something ...
Boots is the name of a British pharmacy chain. She's saying that if the plane sells cigarettes, she should be allowed to smoke on the plane. The man is saying that they sell condoms in the pharmacy, but one would assume they the pharmacy doesn't let you use the condoms for sex right in the store.
The word 'saloon' comes from the French 'salon', which means a large room. The term 'saloon car' was originally used to refer to the luxury carriages on a train. It was adopted by British carmakers in the early part of the 20th Century to describe cars with an enclosed passenger compartment.
Yankee is sometimes abbreviated as “Yank.” People from all over the world, including Great Britain, Australia, and South America, use the term to describe Americans. (In Spanish, it's spelled yanqui.) Sometimes, it's a negative description.
The front window of the car is named the windscreen in the UK, while in the USA, they've tweaked it just slightly to read windshield. Both 'screen' and 'shield' suggest protection and so are still quite similar in their meaning, linguistically.
'Glovebox' maybe creeping in, but most Brits would call the small stowage compartment in the passenger side of the dashboard a glove compartment. In my house, this evening, there was a 5 to 1 majority in favour of glove compartment.
a motor vehicle with four wheels; usually propelled by an internal combustion engine. “he needs a car to get to work” synonyms: auto, automobile, machine, motorcar.
