Word.ws English Dictionary

brake vans

brake vans is the plural of brake van.

Meaning of brake van

Noun

brake van (plural brake vans)

  1. (UK, dated) A railway vehicle used to brake a (goods) train, usually placed at the end of the train. These were essential before continuous train braking became universal.
    • The provision of sanding-gear on brake vans operating over such lines should be compulsory (this old Highland brake was not so fitted); [...].1940 November, “Notes and News: A Highland Collision”, in Railway Magazine, page 612

Questions about brake vans

What is brake vans the plural of?
Brake vans is the plural of brake van.

Words near brake vans in the dictionary

  1. brake test
  2. brake tested
  3. brake testing
  4. brake tests
  5. brake van
  6. brake vans
  7. brake wheel
  8. brake wheels
  9. brake-check
  10. brake-checked
  11. brake-checking

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brake vans (page history and authors); brake van (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “brake vans.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brake_vans. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.