flivver


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fliv·ver

 (flĭv′ər)
n. Slang
An automobile, especially one that is small, inexpensive, and old.

[Origin unknown.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

flivver

(ˈflɪvə)
n
an old, cheap, or battered car
[C20: of unknown origin]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

fliv•ver

(ˈflɪv ər)

n.
Older Slang. an automobile, esp. one that is small, inexpensive, and old.
[1905–10, Amer.; orig. uncertain]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
The plant employed 7,000 people, and Ford Motor Company built housing and a high school." "Flivver," a nickname attached to the Model T, began to gain popularity at approximately the time the plant opened in 1925.
Ninety years ago, Henry Ford envisioned an experimental one-seat airplane called the sky flivver, only to abandon the project when one of the first prototypes crashed, killing the pilot.
He began to experiment with ways to transform the ubiquitous Model T Ford flivver into a serviceable truck.
Which product was colloquially known as the Tin Lizzie, Leaping Lena, or flivver? Ford Model T In Ford Model T, petrol was fed to the engine using gravity and hence it could not climb steep hills if the tank was low on fuel.
Given its sophisticated avionics, high cruising speed and attention to interior and baggage space, the Bristell is clearly conceived as a high-end traveling machine, not a bump-around-the-pattern flivver.
The result was some serious catching up to do to get ready to fly my own personal flivver.
However, in today's car world there is no hint of that so-called "flivver", for, as the Korean-made arm of General Motors, Chevrolet has taken on a whole new role, delivering some very desirable and practical family models.
I was very interested in his course, and one day, as I was coming in from Palo Alto with my old flivver, I met him walking on Palm Drive, and I picked him up and gave him a ride.
The shift is telling, for Guston made some very vernacular paintings in the interim, such as Edge of Town, 1969, which depicts two cigar-puffing Klansmen driving their flivver into a white wall.
I once saw a bumper sticker that read, "All cars run on used parts." This is true--the money spent for the new flivver is not the best of investments.
The extra bulk and weight of a whitewater raft for a float means a more expensive Beaver becomes a two-person flivver.