An automobile or motorcar; a self-propelled vehicle (archaic or formal usage).
From 'auto-' (self, from Greek 'autos') plus 'car' (shortened from 'carriage'). This was an early term emphasizing the self-propulsion feature of motorcars.
Words like 'autocar' are linguistic fossils—once common, now archaic. The '-car' suffix still survives in 'boxcar' and 'streetcar,' showing how we once needed to emphasize 'self-propulsion' as a revolutionary concept.
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