Garage Means a Place of Shelter
A garage houses a car. The French verb means to shelter, and English cannot agree how to pronounce the word.
A garage is a building for housing a motor vehicle. The French *garer* means to shelter or put out of the way, and it also gives the railway sense of shunting a train into a siding. The pronunciation splits English speakers sharply: GARR-idge in Britain, ga-RAHZH in America, with both used in between.
- A building for a car. *A double garage.*
- A repair business. *Take it to the garage.*
- A petrol station (British). *Stop at the garage.*
- A music genre. *UK garage.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | garage | An attached garage. |
| Plural | garages | Two garages. |
| Verb | garage | Garage the car. |
| Compound | garage sale | A weekend garage sale. |
| Related | gare | French *gare*, a station. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The car is in for repair at the garage.British: a workshop.
- Garage bands rehearse at home.American: the rough sound of an amateur group.
- GARR-idge or ga-RAHZH.Both are standard.
Garage compounds
- Garage sale — American, selling household items from a garage
- Garage band — an amateur group rehearsing at home
- Garage rock — a raw guitar genre of the 1960s
- UK garage — a British dance music genre of the 1990s
- Multi-storey car park — what Americans call a parking garage
From French *garage*, from *garer*, to shelter or dock, from a Germanic root meaning to guard. It entered English around 1900.
How is garage pronounced?
GARR-idge is the usual British form, ga-RAHZH the American. Both are correct in their own varieties.
Why does garage mean a petrol station in Britain?
Because early motor businesses combined fuel, repairs and storage, and the word covered all three.