Vehicle

The entirety of a vehicle, usually an automobile or a ship.

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Year: 1899

Quote: “A trial recently took place at Bristol (as reported in the Bristol Times and Mirror of 10 June) for damage done to a ‘gadget.’ The word does not occur in Halliwell, Smyth’s ‘Sailor’s Word-Book,’ or the ‘H.E.D.’ It evidently is the name of some kind of boat, which in the present case was used for the discharge of vessels in the harbour. Can any correspondent kindly give an exact definition, and also suggest its history and probable derivation? Is it local, or an importaiton, or a new coinage?”

Author: W.F.R.

Source: s9-III: 488

Year: 1927

Quote: “”

Author: Green, Fitzhugh

Source: Popular Science, June 1927.

Year: 1928

Quote: “Their transport was a weird six-wheeled automobile that traveled on a roadbed of wire netting. While one roll was stretched in front of the car, another was being picked up behind it. […] The wheels of their homemade six-wheeled car, which they named a ‘gadget,’ were equipped with flat wooden tires, thirty inches wide. Steering was done by braking on first one wheel and then the other.”

Author:

Source: Popular Mechanics. Oct 1928. p. 627-8

Year: 1973

Quote: “Bentsen sees himself as a pragmatist with a healthy concern for the taxpayers’ burdens. He’ considered the supersonic transport “ a piece of technological elegance this country couldn’t afford, “ and even if it could he didn’t think it should be charged to the tax? payers. He doesn’t buy every gadget the Pentagon wants. As subcommittee chairman he bucked Chair? man John Stennis of Senate Armed Services on accelerated development of the Trident submarine because it struck him as poorly managed and a waste of money (perhaps $500 million).”

Author:

Source: The New Republic. 29 December 1973.

Year: 1988

Quote: “He added that the ruling would apparently bar compensation for injuries caused by “ any made-to-order gadget that the Federal Government might purchase after previewing plans - from NASA’ s Challenger space shuttle to the Postal Service’ s old mail cars. “ Among those who, hypothetically, would be denied compensation by the decision, Justice Brennan said, were “ the children who might have died had respondent’ s helicopter crashed on the beach. “”

Author: Taylor, Stuart Jr.

Source: New York Times: 19880628: Section A; Page 1, Column 6