Minivan

How to spell minivan

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce minivan

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does minivan mean?

1. nounA small van with seats for several passengers, typically used as a family vehicle.

Minivan in a sentence

• The family loaded the camping gear into their minivan for the long drive.

• She traded in the sedan for a minivan after the twins were born.

Where does minivan come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a modern compound coined in North America in the early 1980s, when Chrysler popularised a new class of small family vehicle. The first element 'mini-' is a clipping of 'miniature', which traces back to the Latin verb 'miniare', meaning 'to colour with red lead'; that pigment, called 'minium', was used for the small illustrations in medieval manuscripts, and over time 'miniature' came to mean simply 'very small'. The second element 'van' is itself a shortening of 'caravan', a word that travelled into English through French and Italian from the Persian 'karwan', a group of travellers crossing a desert together. So a 'minivan' literally describes a smaller version of a passenger van, and the spelling is reassuringly transparent: two everyday parts joined with no doubled letters or silent traps.

How the word is built

• mini- (small)
• van (boxy passenger vehicle, shortened from caravan)