motor vehicle

English

Noun

motor vehicle (plural motor vehicles)

1. Any land-based means of transportation in the form of a machine that operates primarily through a motor to provide power to rotate the tires.

Usage notes

By tradition, the term is idiomatically restricted to conveyances heavier than bicycles and scooters, despite that those might be motorized and might be considered vehicles; thus, a highway sign saying "motor vehicles only" forbids e-bikes but not motorcycles.

Hyponyms

• motor car (motorcar) (as well as car in that same sense)
• motor truck (motortruck) (as well as truck in that same sense)

Translations

any land-based means of transportation

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 汽車／汽车 (zh) (qìchē), 機動車／机动车 (zh) (jīdòngchē)

• Danish: motorkøretøj (da) n
• Dutch: motorvoertuig (nl) n
• Esperanto: motorveturilo
• Faroese: motorakfar n
• Finnish: moottoriajoneuvo (fi)
• French: véhicule automobile m
• Galician: automóbil (gl) m
• German: Kraftfahrzeug (de) n
• Icelandic: vélknúið ökutæki n
• Irish: feithicil mhótair f
• Italian: autoveicolo (it) m
• Lithuanian: motorinė transporto priemonė
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: motorkjøretøy n, motorvogn m or f

  Nynorsk: motorkøyretøy n, motorvogn f

• Portuguese: automóvel (pt) m
• Romanian: autovehicul (ro) n, automobil (ro) n
• Russian: автомоби́ль (ru) m (avtomobílʹ), автомаши́на (ru) f (avtomašína)
• Spanish: vehículo automóvil m
• Swedish: motorfordon (sv) n