American Slang For Car (Helpful Content!)

The most common American slang terms for a car are “ride” or “wheels”. These are more or less universal throughout America and used just about everywhere. You might also hear terms like “auto” or in a tongue-in-cheek way, “horseless carriage”. “Beater” is a common term for an old car.

There are a few different slang terms for cars in general, then, though realistically only a couple are very commonly used.

You are most likely to hear a car referred to as someone’s “ride” or their “wheels” in America, while others might use terms with a jokier side, such as “beater” or “horseless carriage”.

Let’s find out more.

What do Americans call cars?

Americans have a variety of names for cars, but there are certainly a couple among them that are by far the most common.

Probably the single most common and widely used term for cars in America is “ride” or “my ride”.

This one is used up and down the country to mean a car, though in some cases it can just mean whatever vehicle one uses to get around–be that a bike, a boat, a truck, or anything else.

That said, “car” is without doubt the most common sense of this term and if anything, the joke of referring to your bike, for example, as a car, would be that you perhaps couldn’t afford a car.

“My ride is in the shop right now, I can’t come get you,” for example.

Most common after the term “ride” is certainly “wheels.”

This can be used in virtually precisely the same way as “ride”. It refers to your car though it might also refer to your bike or even a motorbike, but generally, it’s going to be a slang term for your car.

Again, it’s used throughout the country today although it was certainly a lot more common at one time than it is today. It’s become somewhat archaic, though it is certainly still used and anyone who hears you use the term will certainly know what you mean.

“I need a new set of wheels soon,” for example.

You might sometimes hear the term “horseless carriage” used for a car, though this is naturally quite archaic now.

People do still use it as a joke, though, and most people will be able to figure out its meaning from context.

Other than these terms, you may sometimes hear a car referred to as an “auto” in certain parts of the United States, or as a “beater” if it is a particularly beaten down and old car.

Why do Americans say “ride”?

“Ride” is naturally a very old term that has been used in the sense of journeying on something other than your own legs for a long time.

The word itself derives from the Middle English riden, meaning to sit or ride, usually on horseback.

Naturally, then, this term leant itself very well in the earliest days of cars as horses were what they were replacing.

We first see the term “riding shotgun” in the sense of riding in an automobile’s passenger seat in 1919, though we don’t have recorded references of the term “ride” in the more general sense.

It probably arose almost immediately as cars became popular and widely available, and became the most common slang term for car over the course of the 20th Century.

More than that, we can’t really say for sure, lacking written references as we do.

Why do Americans say “wheels”?

The term “wheels” is a lot easier to track down, perhaps in part because it seems to enter American slang much later than “ride”.

Our first written attestation of “wheels” being a slang term for one’s car is in 1959, and so we can expect that it predates this by at least a few years and perhaps even several decades.

It obviously just refers to the fact that a car runs on wheels–there’s not much more to it than that!

Why do Americans say “auto”?

Auto, as you might expect, is a lot older since it is simply an abbreviation of the full “automobile”.

The word automobile itself is naturally very old and not really very much used anymore, but the term “auto” as a shortened form was first recorded in 1899.

This is right as cars were becoming widespread.

Today it is still used to some extent, even though no one really uses the term “automobile” anymore.

Why do Americans say “beater”?

This is certainly the most recent term on this list, and is first recorded in use around the 1980s.

We can expect, again, that it predates this by some time, then, though by how long is impossible to say.

“Beater” specifically refers to an old car, one that has been through many years of driving and is in less than top-notch condition.

The sense is that the car is “beaten” down by its long years of usage and so has become old and on the brink of breaking down.

So, again, if you hear someone use a slang word for a car in the U.S., then in all likelihood it is going to be either “ride” or “wheels”.

These are catch-all, universal slang terms for car that are used just about everywhere.

For the kind of old, beaten down car that you might call a “banger” in Britain, you would probably hear it called a “beater” in America.

“Auto” or “horseless carriage” are also not unheard of.

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