drive-in

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Providing service to patrons who remain in their automobiles and partake while parked.

   • drive-in church; drive-in funeral parlor
2. 2

   motel

   motel; motor inn

3. 3

   An outdoor cinema where movies are projected onto a large screen and patrons watch from…

   An outdoor cinema where movies are projected onto a large screen and patrons watch from inside their vehicles, listening either by a speaker or a designated radio frequency.

   • Owners and sponsors of the drive-ins feel that in three-quarters of their patrons they have tapped a practically prehistoric strain of human—the hitherto non-movie-goer.
   • This fact may seem surprising since the major movie studios, reluctant to risk cheapening their images by releasing first-run films to drive-ins, made only older movies affordable to drive-in operators.
   • At the end of June 1997, there were 325 cinema sites and 28 drive-in sites in Australia.
4. ›+ 2 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      A restaurant where patrons remain in their vehicles to consume their meals

      A restaurant where patrons remain in their vehicles to consume their meals; the meal may be ordered and delivered to one's vehicle by a carhop waiter; or may require patrons to use a service counter. The cars in the parking lot serve as the patrons' dining room, there being a lack of dining rooms and tables.

      • The teenagers went down to the drive-in to order some hamburgers and fries.
      • 1965 May 7, Don Moser, The nightmare of life with Billy, LIFE, page 101,
   2. 5

      A drive-through restaurant where patrons remain in their vehicles and order food and…

      A drive-through restaurant where patrons remain in their vehicles and order food and beverages via a speaker phone; the meal is delivered by a service window accessible by car.

      • For during the fabled Indiana blizzard of ′78, Tom found himself trapped inside the kitchen of the drive-in for three days before his family, and—more to the point—his customers, could reach him.

The neighborhood

• synonymdrive-in restaurantdrive-in restaurant
• neighborcar hop
• neighbordrive-throughdrive-in restaurant
• neighbordrive-through restaurantdrive-in restaurant