flivver

Unknown, early 20th c.; in 1919, cartoonist Tad Dorgan claimed to have created the term in his comic strip "Judge Rummy".^[1]

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈflɪv.ɚ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈflɪv.ə(ɹ)/
• Rhymes: -ɪvə(ɹ)

flivver (plural flivvers)

1. (colloquial, dated, Canada, US) An automobile, particularly one which is old and inexpensive.

   Synonyms: jalopy, tin Lizzie; see also Thesaurus:old car

   • 1920 July, Lyman Seelye, “Quite a Picnic”, in The Overland Monthly‎^[1]:

     Billy being too poor to own a car, had hired a cheap flivver for the day, and was purposely ten minutes behind the time, but to his disgust found the procession not yet started.

   • 1998, Nigel Anthony Sellars, Oil, Wheat & Wobblies: The Industrial Workers of the World in Oklahoma, 1905-1930, University of Oklahoma Press, →ISBN, →OL, page 180:

     These workers were often joined by impoverished small farmers from Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri who pooled their resources to buy a flivver and follow the harvest into the Dakotas and Canada.

   1. (originally) A Ford Model T.
2. (US, military, nautical, historical, slang, derogatory) A destroyer of the United States Navy with a displacement of less than 1,000 tons.