racecar

A racecar is a car designed to race at high speeds, as in Callie, who dreamed of driving racecars as a child, is a professional racecar driver in France.

Racecar is a general name used to describe a wide variety of motor vehicles designed for racing. One of the most well-known types of racecars is the Formula One (F1) car, which is a one-seat, slim car raced on an open track. Other types of racecars include the stock car and the dragster. 

Example: That green racecar sounded like it was about to break down.

The first records of the term racecar come from around the early 1900s. It combines the terms race, meaning “a contest of speed,” and car, meaning “an automobile.”

Did you notice anything special about the term racecar? It can be read the same way forward and backward. That’s called a palindrome. Spell racecar backwards and you still get racecar. Some other palindromes include dad, Go dog, and Poor Dan is in a droop. (When creating a palindrome with more than one word, capitalization, spaces, and punctuation usually don’t count.)

What are some synonyms for racecar?

• racing car

What are some words that share a root or word element with racecar? 

• race 
• racer
• car
• racecourse
• carport

What are some words that often get used in discussing racecar?

• driver
• motor
• speed

Racecar is a general term for many different types of cars built or modified for racing. It is also one of the most frequently used examples of a palindrome.

racecar spelled backwards is still racecar

— Mason Ramsey (@masonramsey) October 10, 2018

I want to be a racecar driver!

— Josh Devine (@JoshDevineDrums) November 19, 2014

I'm pretty sure I just saw a mattress commercial starring Patrick Dempsey dressed like a racecar driver driving a Porsche.

— Adam Levine (@adamlevine) May 16, 2014

Updated on February 27, 2023

Is racecar used correctly in the following sentence?

“When Violet moved from a crib to a bed, her parents gave her a racecar-shaped bed.”