black maria

Questions about black maria

What does black maria mean?

black maria means "van used by police to transport prisoners". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for black maria?

Close synonyms include police van, police wagon, paddy wagon, patrol wagon, wagon. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is black maria a common word?

black maria is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.