clown car

English

Etymology

From a comedy routine first invented by the Cole Brothers Circus during the 1950s.

Pronunciation

Noun

clown car (plural clown cars)

  1. (comedy) A circus clown routine in which an implausibly large number of clowns climb into or out of a small car.
    • 2012, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Vroom!:
      Kids of all ages have been applauding the clown car trick for more than 60 years, ever since it was first introduced in 1950 by master clown Otto Griebling at the Cole Brothers Circus.
    • 2014, Allen Laycock, Hereditary Decision, page 9:
      It looked as if around fifty people got out and it reminded me of a clown car at a circus.
    • 2016, Stephanie Faris, Piper Morgan Joins the Circus:
      Sometimes clowns do a trick called “clown car,” where a bunch of clowns squeeze into a car and come out, one by one. […] If you go to a circus with a clown car, you'll see they have suitcases, beach balls, and other items to make it funnier.
  2. The undersized car used in a circus clown car routine.
    • 1962, Freeman H. Hubbard, Great days of the circus, page 132:
      Tiny chugging clown cars drive into the arena, and clown after clown after clown climbs out, enough to fill a bus.
    • 2004, Eric Weitz, The Power of Laughter: Comedy and Contemporary Irish Theatre:
      My first experience of clown, like most people, was at the circus. I cried. The clown car exploded and fell apart. I cried.
  3. (by extension, often derogatory) A very small car.
    • 2000, Automotive Manufacturing & Production: AM & P.:
      The two-stroke-engine powered, built-with-communist-pride Trabant — a very small, two-door, clown car that resembles a shrunken '55 Chevy — does not particularly excite me.
    • 2007, Rebecca S. Ramsey, French By Heart:
      Eleven days later, Madame Chabosson met us at her office parking lot and the five of us squeezed ourselves into her little clown car.
    • 2012, Liz Talley, A Little Texas:
      A security officer sat in his little clown car about thirty yards away.
    • 2013, Whit Howland, Bullets for Coffins:
      Huey shut the door and glanced back at his pink compact clown car, still lamenting the loss of his Caddy.
    • 2009, Louise Rennison, Are these my basoomas I see before me?:
      He has painted a racing stripe down the side of his three-wheeled Reliant Robin. Even Grandad overtook the clown car the other day, and he wasn't even on his bike.
  4. (by extension) A car or small enclosed space with too many people or things in it.
    • 2007, Kansas City Metropolitan Verse, volume 2, page 26:
      At the grocery store, a clown car as everyone unfolds, gets out, stretches legs and goes inside, stopping a moment in appreciation of air conditioning.
    • 2008, Ken Jennings, Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac, page ix:
      I hope you enjoy this endlessly overstuffed clown car of trivia (Ken Jennings's Trivia Clown Car?).
    • 2010, Carolyn A. Thériault, Stealing Fatima's Hand, page 106:
      So, I watched as the adults (four) and children (seven) indulged in some sort of vehicular limbo dance as bodies swerved, behinds slid over, and the body parts of several children poked through the windows as if seeking escape. After a few minutes of this, a woman emerged and the tiny clown car went on its way.
    • 2012, Ryan Custer Amacher, A Baby Boomer's Guide to Their Second Sixties, page 95:
      She already had 6 kids. I find it troubling that Nadya views her womb as a clown car.
    • 2013, Tracy Beckerman, Lost in Suburbia: A Momoir:
      Four people in a bathroom the size of a broom closet is a clown car.
    • 2013 February 23, Luke Cross, “‘Clown car womb’ benefits mum ‘should get a bloody job’, says her father”, in Metro‎[1]:
      Neighbours have criticised the council’s decision to construct a specially-designed house for the family, saying Ms Frost treated her womb like a ‘clown car’.
  5. (figurative, derogatory, often politics) Any process with a comically large number of participants, especially participants who themselves are comical or ridiculous.
    clown-car primaries
    • 1992 April 18, Jane Gross, quoting Rob Morse, “New Mayor's 'Shaky' Start Has San Francisco Puzzled”, in The New York Times‎[2], →ISSN:
      The personnel moves were startling—some say Machiavellian—and have kept tongues wagging in a city that takes its fractious politics seriously. At The San Francisco Examiner, where street sales rose by as much as 4,000 a day during the frenetic episode, a columnist, Rob Morse, wrote: “The clown car keeps pulling up at City Hall, and more clowns keep piling out.”
    • 2013, Jonathan Alter, chapter 15, in The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 191:
      So the best explanation for Romney's tumble was the terrible publicity of the clown car debates, combined with the attack ads launched against him by Newt Gingrich via Sheldon Adelson.
    • 2013, Simon Winlow, Rowland Atkinson, New Directions in Crime and Deviancy, Routledge, →ISBN:
      Of course, the ideological ascendancy of the right allows conservative commentators to take a derisory approach, labelling all work on the prison-industrial complex as laughable left-wing nonsense peddled by Marxist goofballs and other passengers in the clown car of academic identity politics' (Goldberg 2011).
    • 2015 January 24, Roger Simon, “GOP clown car runs into ditch”, in Politico‎[3]:
      The Republican Party’s clown car has become a clown van. With nearly two dozen possible presidential candidates, the GOP is having a seriousness deficit. There can’t possibly be that many people who are real candidates.
    • 2015 May 18, Dana Milbank, “The Republican field is a clown car”, in The Washington Post‎[4], →ISSN:
      The Republican field is a clown car [title]
    • 2020 August 2, Kara Swisher, “Microsoft Can Save TikTok — if Trump Doesn’t Mess It Up”, in The New York Times‎[5]:
      Let’s be clear: while it sounds plausible in this clown car of a White House that Trump is motivated by revenge, I don’t think he’s trying to bring down Sarah Cooper for her eviscerating mimicry of him on TikTok.
    • 2024 November 17, Zach Vasquez, “Saturday Night Live: Charli xcx has fun in otherwise middle of the road episode”, in The Guardian‎[6], →ISSN:
      Colin Jost and Michael Che cover the same ground as the cold open, reporting on Trump’s clown car cabinet picks of Matt Gaetz (“He said the same thing he says when he sees a teenage girl: I’ll do it”), Musk (“You can’t be surprised that the white African guy’s first idea is slavery”), and RFK Jr (“The first brain worm survivor nominated to a cabinet-level position”).
    • 2025 May 21, Jonathan Wilson, “Spurs prevail with Mourinho blueprint and ultra pragmatism in baffling final”, in The Guardian‎[7]:
      Only when Pape Sarr, receiving the ball from the Uruguayan, whipped in a dangerous inswinging cross did the prevailing mood reassert itself, as the ball eventually found its way past a flailing André Onana off Shaw’s arm. Brennan Johnson had applied the pressure to force the mistake, but it was not good goalkeeping and it was not good defending, an absolute clown car of a goal.
  6. (literally) A car for clowns, especially the car of a circus train that carries the clowns.
    • 1956, Emmett Kelly, Clown, page 208:
      I lost complete track of Frank Sinatra and while I was hunting for him I saw a fellow with my tramp makeup on, waiting to get into the clown car.
    • 1989, Kristopher Antekeier, Greg Aunapu, Ringmaster!:
      Well, you said you wanted to see the rest of the train. You know, the clown car and all.
    • 2001, Warren Murphy, Syndication Rites, page 35:
      Besides, the Local Brotherhood of Clowns, Mimes and Tumblers would put my ass in a sling if I violated the sanctity of the clown car.
    • 2009, Keith Carpenter, Zombie Circus: The Most Death Defying Show in Town, page 36:
      Most people would have smiled at the sight of two clowns, in a clown car on their way into town, but not this particular woman.
    • 2010, Joe Wood, Funnymen: Life and Times on the Greatest Show on Earth, page 34:
      I remember the first time walking towards the circus train, finding the clown car, hopping up on the vestibule, opening the sliding door and settling into my berth on the train.
  7. (derogatory) A car that looks gaudy or otherwise ridiculous.
    • 1956, American Bicyclist and Motorcyclist, volume 77, page lxvii:
      Through our parade fees we have purchased a 1938 LaSalle hearse (which we painted red and yellow) and our own public address system, which is mounted on our clown car (hearse).
    • 2006, John Crawford, The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell:
      Their curses could be heard late into the evening, when one by one they would climb into dilapidated clown cars and speed away.
    • 2013, Jay Farrar, Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs, page 29:
      This was instrumental in laying the foundation for the "clown pants for cars" look—though I think Pop's ethos leaned a lot more towards the "hippie pants for cars" look. […] A clown car had arrived to take away the drudgery and banality of Middle America elementary school life!
    • 2013, Judi Fennell, If The Shoe Fits:
      With serving trays and mixing bowls and what-not, it would probably end up looking like a clown car.

Derived terms

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