noun
- any means in or by which someone travels or something is carried or conveyed; a means of conveyance or transport: a motor vehicle; space vehicles.
- a conveyance moving on wheels, runners, tracks, or the like, as a cart, sled, automobile, or tractor.
- a means of transmission or passage: Air is the vehicle of sound.
- a carrier, as of infection.
- a medium of communication, expression, or display: The novel is a fitting vehicle for his talents. Language is the vehicle of thought.
- Theater, Movies. a play, screenplay, or the like, having a role suited to the talents of and often written for a specific performer.
- a means of accomplishing a purpose: College is a vehicle for success.
- Rhetoric. the thing or idea to which the subject of a metaphor is compared, as “rose” in “she is a rose.”Compare tenor(def 3).
- Pharmacology. a substance, usually fluid, possessing little or no medicinal action, used as a medium for active remedies.
- Painting. a liquid, as oil, in which a pigment is mixed before being applied to a surface.
noun
- any conveyance in or by which people or objects are transported, esp one fitted with wheels
- a medium for the expression, communication, or achievement of ideas, information, power, etc
- pharmacol a therapeutically inactive substance mixed with the active ingredient to give bulk to a medicine
- Also called: base a painting medium, such as oil, in which pigments are suspended
- (in the performing arts) a play, musical composition, etc, that enables a particular performer to display his talents
- a rocket excluding its payload
1610s, “a medium through which a drug or medicine is administered,” also “any means of conveying or transmitting,” from French véhicule, from Latin vehiculum “means of transport, a vehicle,” from vehere “to carry,” from PIE *wegh- “to go, transport in a vehicle” (cf. Old English wegan “to carry;” Old Norse vegr, Old High German weg “way;” Middle Dutch wagen “wagon;” see wagon). Sense of “cart or other conveyance” first recorded 1650s.
n.
- A substance of no therapeutic value that is used to convey an active medicine for administration.