garage

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈɡæ.ɹɪdʒ/, /ˈɡæ.ɹɑːʒ/ (UK); /ɡəˈɹɑʒ/, /ɡəˈɹɑdʒ/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French garage (“a place for sheltering a vehicle”),^[2][3][4] from garer (“to shelter, to dock”), from Old French garir (“to protect”),^[3][2][5] from Frankish *warōn (“to guard”) or another Germanic source (compare Old High German warōn (“to take care”); see wary).^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A building for keeping motor vehicles: 1902, in a New York Athletic Club Journal notice calling it the French term for an automobile stable;^[3][2][6] MWU has 1905.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The AHD notes that French garage first meant a place where boats dock (1802) and took the sense of a shelter for vehicles in 1901, and that English borrowed it almost immediately.^[7] A commercial establishment selling petrol and repairing cars is also from 1902.^[6] A hangar for aircraft was a garage from 1909.^[6] The verb, to put into a garage, is from 1906.^[2][3] The garage sale is American from 1966,^[6][3] the garage band, an amateur rock group, from 1977,^[6] and garage as a style of dance music from 1987, named after the Paradise Garage club in New York.^[6]

Timeline

• 1902 – a shelter for cars.^[2][6]
• 1906 – the verb.^[2][3]
• 1966 – garage sale.^[6][3]
• 1977 – garage band.^[6]
• 1987 – garage music.^[6]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A building or part of a house for keeping a car or other vehicle.
2. A place where vehicles are repaired, serviced or sold, often also selling fuel.
3. A style of rock or dance music.

Verb

1. To put or keep a vehicle in a garage.

Word family

• garageable
• garageman
• garage band
• garage sale

Related words

• wary
• beware
• garrison
• garret

Usage notes

British pronunciations include /ˈɡærɑːʒ/ and /ˈɡærɪdʒ/, while American English stresses the second syllable, /ɡəˈrɑːʒ/.^[8][9]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins