overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

wagon.

A heavier four-wheeled (normally horse-drawn) vehicle designed to carry goods (or sometimes people).

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈwæɡən/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈwæɡən] ~ [ˈwæɡn̩]General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈwaɡən/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales[ˈwaɡən] ~ [ˈwaɡn̩]British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales

  1. A heavier four-wheeled (normally horse-drawn) vehicle designed to carry goods (or sometimes people).

  2. Abbreviation of toy wagon; A child's riding toy, with the same structure as a wagon (sense 1), pulled or steered by a long handle attached to the front.

    abbreviation · alt-of

  3. A shopping cart.

    New-England · US

  4. A vehicle (wagon) designed to transport goods or people on railway.

  5. Ellipsis of dinner wagon (“set of light shelves mounted on castors so that it can be pushed around a dining room and used for serving”).

    abbreviation · alt-of · ellipsis

  6. Ellipsis of paddy wagon (“police van for transporting prisoners”).

    abbreviation · alt-of · ellipsis · slang

  7. Ellipsis of station wagon (“type of automobile”); (occasionally, loosely) any car, van, or light truck.

    Australia · Canada · US · abbreviation · alt-of · ellipsis · informal

  8. Term of abuse. A woman of loose morals, a promiscuous woman, a slapper.

    Ireland · dated · derogatory · slang

  9. Term of abuse. An obnoxious woman; a bitch; a cow.

    Ireland · broadly · derogatory · slang

  10. A kind of prefix used in de Bruijn notation.

  11. Buttocks.

    slang
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Middle Dutch wagen, from Old Dutch *wagan, from Proto-West Germanic *wagn, from Proto-Germanic *wagnaz (“wagon”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to transport”). Generally displaced native cognate wain, from Old English wæġn, of which it is a doublet. Related also to way, weigh. Sense 8 (“woman of loose morals; obnoxious woman”) is probably a derogatory and jocular reference to a woman being “ridden”, that is, mounted for the purpose of sexual intercourse. The verb is derived from the noun.

verb/ˈwæɡən/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈwæɡən] ~ [ˈwæɡn̩]General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈwaɡən/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales[ˈwaɡən] ~ [ˈwaɡn̩]British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales

  1. To load into a wagon in preparation for transportation; to transport by means of a wagon.

    US · transitive

  2. To travel in a wagon.

    US · intransitive
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Middle Dutch wagen, from Old Dutch *wagan, from Proto-West Germanic *wagn, from Proto-Germanic *wagnaz (“wagon”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to transport”). Generally displaced native cognate wain, from Old English wæġn, of which it is a doublet. Related also to way, weigh. Sense 8 (“woman of loose morals; obnoxious woman”) is probably a derogatory and jocular reference to a woman being “ridden”, that is, mounted for the purpose of sexual intercourse. The verb is derived from the noun.

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

wagon has 5 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

wagon studiowagon workshello, wagon

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.