ute

What it means

1. 1.

   A utility vehicle: a car-based pickup with an open tray at the back. Close to an American pickup truck but built on a passenger-car chassis.

In use

• Chuck it in the back of the ute.

• Every tradie on site drives a ute.

Where it comes from

Clipped from 'coupé utility'. The vehicle type is an Australian invention of the 1930s, so the word arrived with the thing itself.

First attested: 1940s