pantechnicon

Meaning

Noun

• A building or place housing shops or stalls where all sorts of (especially exotic) manufactured articles are collected for sale.
• Originally pantechnicon van: a van, especially a large moving or removal van.

Related

Similar words

• moving truck, moving van
• removal van

Origin

• From Pantechnicon, a 19th-century firm which owned a building with a Greek-style facade of Doric columns in Motcomb Street, Belgrave Square, London, UK, with a picture gallery, a furniture shop, a shop selling carriages, and a warehouse for storing customers’ furniture and other items. The firm used large horse-drawn vans to collect and deliver their customers' property, which came to be known as Pantechnicon vans.
• The word was coined by the firm from pan- (from Ancient Greek πᾶν, neuter form of πᾶς) + τεχνικόν, neuter singular of τεχνικός.