char·a·banc

(shăr′ə-băng′)

n. Chiefly British

A bus typically used for sightseeing, originally open and pulled by horses.

[From French char à bancs : char, coach, carriage (from Old French, cart; see chariot) + à, with (from Latin ad, toward; see ad-) + bancs, benches, pl. of banc (from Old French; see bank³).]

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.

charabanc

(ˈʃærəˌbæŋ; French ʃarabɑ̃)

(Automotive Engineering) obsolete Brit a motor coach, esp one used for sightseeing tours

[C19: from French char-à-bancs, wagon with seats]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

charabanc - a vehicle carrying many passengers; used for public transport; "he always rode the bus to work"

double-decker, jitney, motorbus, motorcoach, autobus, bus, passenger vehicle, omnibus, coach

minibus - a light bus (4 to 10 passengers)

public transport - conveyance for passengers or mail or freight

roof - protective covering on top of a motor vehicle

school bus - a bus used to transport children to or from school

trackless trolley, trolley coach, trolleybus - a passenger bus with an electric motor that draws power from overhead wires

window - a transparent opening in a vehicle that allow vision out of the sides or back; usually is capable of being opened

fleet - group of motor vehicles operating together under the same ownership

passenger, rider - a traveler riding in a vehicle (a boat or bus or car or plane or train etc) who is not operating it

Translations

charabanc

(o.f.) [ˈʃærəbæŋ] N (Brit) → autobús m, autocar m (Sp)

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

charabanc

[ʃarabɑ̃] n (British) → char m à bancs

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Laurence's cherry-bounce." (Hannah's pronunciation of charabanc.)

View in context

BREXIT continues to be an apocalyptic promise at the tail end of summer with bungling Boris at the wheel of the charabanc driving the UK off the end of the White Cliffs of Dover.

brexit puts the boot in

Ian Bott will be making a very welcome return to take us all on A Magical Midlands Mystery Tour, based on "charabanc" tours he took around numerous places of interest in the 1960s.

NOTE BOOK l Wyre Forest [...]

Maybe, in these days of social media, there's less desire for physical contact, or singing lustily in the beery charabanc returning from the seaside.

This choir is for your wellbeing; MY CITY

If one couldn't afford a bus then a charabanc was used, especially for Sunday school outings, and eventually a visit to the seaside for Butlins.

Time travelling tourist talk

A KINDLY reader from Rhiwbina has sent me a postcard photograph taken outside an Hancocks pub which shows her great aunt sitting with others in a charabanc.

Can you identify mystery pub?

If she insists on handing out ermine with a PS305 daily tax-free allowance to another charabanc of Conservative has-beens and never-weres Mrs May will quickly discover it goes down like a lead balloon with the public.

What a sly May move; VOICE OF THE

Who today can identify a charabanc, a dos-a-dos or even a phaeton?

Illustrated Dictionary of Automobile Body Styles, second edition

The topics include Maria Jones and Charabanc: popular theater in and for Northern Ireland, purchasing power: material culture and the function of America in her post-Charabanc plays, an alternative peace process: violence and reconciliation in her plays, masculinity and the performance of gendered identities in her plays, and popular feminisms and the radical within: menopausal women's desire for visibility in her Women on the Verge of HRT.

The Theatre of Marie Jones: Telling Stories From the Ground Up

Consequently, the publication of The Theatre of Marie Jones: Telling Stories from the Ground Up, a volume of essays and interviews edited by Eugene McNulty and Tom Maguire, and ranging across the whole of Jones's oeuvre from her early Charabanc days to the present, is to be welcomed as the kind of book that the bemused reviewer sorely needed.

To sneer and cheer

An old charabanc would trundle along, We would all pile in, our happy throng.

ON a hot summer's day many years ago... As the Midlands prepares for a heatwave, Sunday Mercury reader REG SUMMERFIELD recalls the heady days of summers past

There'll be a couple of reindeer and Father Christmas arriving in style on a vintage charabanc!

COCA-COLA TRUCK CONFIRMED FOR BAY