Caravan

How to spell caravan

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce caravan

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does caravan mean?

1. nounA vehicle equipped for living in, designed to be towed by a car and used for holidays or as a dwelling.
2. nounA group of people, often with vehicles or pack animals, travelling together across a long distance.

Caravan in a sentence

• They towed the caravan to a coastal site for the summer holiday.

• The trading caravan crossed the desert with dozens of laden camels.

• The family spent the weekend cleaning out their caravan before the trip.

• A long caravan of trucks carried supplies along the mountain road.

Where does caravan come from?

Language of origin: Other

The word travelled into English from the Persian karwan, which described a company of merchants, pilgrims, or other travellers journeying together for safety across long and often dangerous routes. Persian passed it to other languages, and English picked it up around the late 1500s through the French caravane and the Italian caravana, both of which kept the original sense of a band of travellers moving in convoy. For centuries an English caravan was exactly that: a group crossing a desert with camels and goods. The familiar modern British meaning, a covered wagon and later a towable home on wheels, grew out of the idea of the travelling vehicle itself, and became common in the nineteenth century. The single, regular vowels make the spelling forgiving, though the unstressed middle 'a' (car-A-van) is the spot people occasionally second-guess.

How the word is built

• caravan (whole word, no separable English affixes; from Persian karwan, a company of travellers)