Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use van in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Van means a covered motor vehicle used to carry goods or (normally less than ten) persons, usually roughly cuboid in shape, Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and longer and higher than a car but relatively smaller than a truck/lorry or a bus. Example: “We have brought the van to a garage after we found a leak in the tank.”

Examples of van by meaning

nounA covered motor vehicle used to carry goods or (normally less than ten) persons, usually roughly cuboid in shape...

  • Carbon emissions from vans in the UK have risen by 63% since 1990, new analysis shows, as cars are getting cleaner.2024 June 22, James Tapper, “Carbon emissions from vans still rising as UK drivers cling to diesel”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

nounA large towable vehicle equipped for the repair of structures that cannot easily be moved.

  • Designed to be fully mobile and self-contained, the complete equipment includes an air-conditioned van containing all necessary electronic gear and a flat bed trailer in which missiles, jet engines and other large assemblies may be cleaned.1959, Western Aerospace, volume 39, page 46

verbOf law enforcement: to arrest (not necessarily in a van; derived from party van).

  • One Anon explained the reason for this, saying: "As for the domains, they were transferred to Ryan after some of us got vanned so he can keep the network up.2011, The hackers hacked: main Anonymous IRC servers invaded
  • He later told CW that he had been "v&" or "vanned" by the police, and he expressed surprise that the police showed him detailed transcripts of his conversations.2012, FBI names, arrests Anon who infiltrated its secret conference call
  • In a last-ditch effort to avoid getting "vanned," Naratto tried to put the memie back in the bottle2013, Redditor Confesses to Murder with Meme, Gets Doxed by Other Redditors, Deletes His Account and Disappears

More sentences with van

  • We have brought the van to a garage after we found a leak in the tank.From the entry tank
  • He has a bumper sticker on his van that reads "faster than a speeding ticket".From the entry bumper sticker
  • Van Eyck signed his portrait of the Arnolfinis slapdash in the center of the painting.From the entry slapdash
  • Unlike the average vehicle, cash delivery vans are ironclad and almost unstoppable.From the entry ironclad
  • We bought some ice cream cones from the ice cream van in the park.From the entry ice cream cone
  • My car was hit by a truck, which in turn was hit by the van.From the entry in turn
  • Vincent van Gogh used chrome yellow in many of his paintings.From the entry chrome yellow
  • It will be hard to tetris all this furniture into the moving van.From the entry tetris
  • The channel beyond Staten Island, which connects Newark Bay with Bergen Neck is the Kill van Kull, or the Kills.From the entry kill
  • She owns a fleet of private medical transport vans.From the entry fleet
  • Van Beethoven's ninth symphony is a tremendous piece of music.From the entry tremendous
  • The van was painted a sunburnt brown.From the entry sunburnt
  • The van was stuffed to the brim with camping equipment.From the entry to the brim
  • The van accelerated squealingly around the corner.From the entry squealingly
  • Van Eck phreaking might be used to compromise the secrecy of the votes in an election using electronic voting.From the entry Van Eck phreaking
  • I can offer you a good deal on that van.From the entry good deal
  • Back then there was no satnav — you needed to keep a paper atlas in the delivery van and to consult it daily.From the entry satnav
  • DHS later amended its claims to reflect that only one person was in the van.2026 February 17, Aaron Blake, “The many claims by Trump’s DHS that have fallen apart”, in CNN, archived from the original on 18 Feb 2026. From the entry Anne Arundel County
  • A minibus van, often numberless and dubbed the 'drone', gained notoriety for kidnaps and disappearances.2022 October 20, Albert K Awedoba, Andreas Mehler, Benedikt Kamski, David Sebudubudu, Africa Yearbook, volume 18, →ISBN, page 419. From the entry drone
  • Easy transfer there to a dollar van that’s cruising for a pickup.2022, N. K. Jemisin, The World We Make, Orbit, page 43. From the entry dollar van
  • He has been arrested several times, transported in drone vans and brutalized in various detention facilities.2021 February 4, Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, “Horror inside a kidnap drone”, in The Observer. From the entry drone
  • The postcard is “not a secret hidden document that nobody can find,” Mr. van der Veen said.2020 July 28, Nina Siegal, “A Clue to Van Gogh’s Final Days Is Found in His Last Painting”, in New York Times. From the entry hidden in plain sight
  • Early one Saturday morning, a gaggly line of children stretched away behind the fix-it van.2019, Scott Russell Sanders, The Engineer of Beasts, page 116. From the entry gaggly
  • Van Son unscrewed the pump’s handle and shoved it into her bra.2018 December 31, Natalie Kitroeff, “‘A Pumping Conspiracy’: Why Workers Smuggled Breast Pumps Into Prison”, in The New York Times. From the entry unscrew
  • Who are the ‘incels’ and how do they relate to Toronto van attack?2018 April 25, Alex Hern, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/25/what-is-incel-movement-toronto-van-attack-suspect, The Guardian. From the entry incel
  • Harm-Jan van Dam dedicates his article to this kind of liminary poetry.2017, Christoph Pieper, “Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Monasteriensis: Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Congress of Neo-Latin…. From the entry liminary
  • Next week, get your katanas, miniguns, Bulldog-Step vans, and Earth Spirits out.2015 March 23, Andrew Smith, “Start your R&R with some D&D”, in The Spokesman-Review. From the entry rp
  • He rose up to sit on Jared's headrest, facing the back of the van and me.2015, Elle Casey, War of the Fae: Book 8 (Time Slipping), Elle Casey, →ISBN. From the entry headrest
  • Van Belkum et al. report one example of a heptanucleotide 5’-GTGATTA-3’ in Helicobacter pylori.2015 December 23, “Investigation of a Quadruplex-Forming Repeat Sequence Highly Enriched in Xanthomonas and Nostoc sp.”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI. From the entry heptanucleotide
  • Who needs the FBI party van when you can just order CALEA take out?2014 September 5, Sean Gallagher, “When NSA and FBI call for surveillance takeout, these companies deliver”, in Ars Technica. From the entry party van
  • They shoved me in the back of a police van and started driving to the cop shop.2013, Colin Blaney, Hotshot: The Story of a Little Red Devil. From the entry dibble
  • He was awakened by a couple of burly police officers and huckled out to a waiting van.2013, Michael Munro, The Crack: The Best of Glasgow Humour. From the entry huckle
  • She hopped out of the van, and waited calmly as Mr Gray approached.2013, Grace Banks, Sheena Blackhall, Aberdeenshire Folk Tales, The History Press, →ISBN. From the entry chucky
  • The van said ‘BURT’S BURGERS’ on one side and ‘BURT’S PEST CONTROL’ on the other.2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN. From the entry only
  • The van was heading straight for her and travelling faster and faster by the second.2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN. From the entry roadkill

Meaning of van

  1. noun A covered motor vehicle used to carry goods or (normally less than ten) persons, usually roughly cuboid in shape, Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and longer and higher than a car but relatively smaller than a truck/lorry or a bus.
  2. noun An enclosed railway vehicle for transport of goods, such as a boxcar/box van.
  3. noun A light wagon, either covered or open, used by tradesmen and others for the transportation of goods.

Full definition of van

Questions about van in a sentence

How do you use van in a sentence?
Van is used as a noun and verb. For example: “We have brought the van to a garage after we found a leak in the tank.”
What is a short sentence with van?
“The van accelerated squealingly around the corner.”
What does van mean?
Van means a covered motor vehicle used to carry goods or (normally less than ten) persons, usually roughly cuboid in shape, Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and longer and higher than a car but relatively smaller than a truck/lorry or a bus.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: van (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use van in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/van. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.