van

Etymology 1

Short for caravan.

noun

1. A covered motor vehicle used to carry goods or (normally less than ten) persons, usually roughly cuboid in shape, longer and higher than a car but relatively smaller than a truck/lorry or a bus.
   The van sped down the road.
2. (Britain) An enclosed railway vehicle for transport of goods, such as a boxcar/box van.
3. (dated) A light wagon, either covered or open, used by tradesmen and others for the transportation of goods.
4. (aerospace) A large towable vehicle equipped for the repair of structures that cannot easily be moved.
   Designed to be fully mobile and self-contained, the complete equipment includes an air-conditioned van containing all necessary electronic gear and a flat bed trailer in which missiles, jet engines and other large assemblies may be cleaned. 1959, Western Aerospace, volume 39, page 46

verb

1. (transitive) To transport in a van or similar vehicle (especially of horses).
   I have to have a license to own them, a license to train them, my jockey has to have a license to ride them, the van company must have a license to van them, and the black shoe man must have a license to shoe them. 1966, United States Congress, Senate, Committee on Commerce, (Please provide the book title or journal name)
   [They] had their own horses, but they hadn't bothered to van them over to Pine Hollow for this outing. 1999, Bonnie Bryant, Changing Leads, page 53
2. (Internet slang, used in passive voice) Of law enforcement: to arrest (not necessarily in a van; derived from party van).
   One Anon explained the reason for this, saying: "As for the domains, they were transferred to Ryan after some of us got vanned so he can keep the network up. What he did certainly wasn't the plan." (Getting "vanned" refers to getting picked up by the police.) 2011, The hackers hacked: main Anonymous IRC servers invaded
   He later told CW that he had been "v&" or "vanned" by the police, and he expressed surprise that the police showed him detailed transcripts of his conversations. 2012, FBI names, arrests Anon who infiltrated its secret conference call
   But not before someone supposedly forwarded all the information onto the FBI. In a last-ditch effort to avoid getting "vanned," Naratto tried to put the memie back in the bottle 2013, Redditor Confesses to Murder with Meme, Gets Doxed by Other Redditors, Deletes His Account and Disappears
   2015 13-year-old credited with hacking CIA director’s AOL account gives bizarre, possibly final interview The hacker says he thinks he is about to be v&, or “vanned,” meaning being raided by law enforcement, sometime soon.
   On Wednesday night, Motherboard spoke to the teenager accused of being Cracka. "I got fucking v&," he told Motherboard, using "v&," the slang for "vanned," or getting arrested. (At this point, the arrest had not been made public.) 2016, Teen Allegedly Behind CIA, FBI Breaches: 'They're Trying to Ruin My Life.'
   Commander X: Yep, so now you all know how I got vanned. And you just met the snitch who did it to me. 2017, Dark Ops: An Anonymous Story, page 8

Etymology 2

Shortening of vanguard.

noun

1. Clipping of vanguard.
   Ten thousand thousand Ensignes high advanc'd, / Standards, and Gonfalons twixt Van and Reare / Streame in the Aire, and for distinction serve 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, book 5, lines 588–590
   Then a bumper to the Queen led the van of our good wishes, another to the Church Established, a third was left to the whim of the toaster[…] 1698, Ned Ward, The London Spy
   Bhīṣma then outlined the following strategy: “… Let Karṇa, clad in armour, stand in the van. And I shall command the entire army in the rear.” 1965, “Virāṭa Parva”, in Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan, transl., The Mahābhārata, book 4, translation of original in Sanskrit, section 33, page 84

Etymology 3

From Cornish.

noun

1. (mining) A shovel used in cleansing ore.

verb

1. (mining) To wash or cleanse, as a small portion of ore, on a shovel.

Etymology 4

From Latin vannus (“a van, or fan for winnowing grain”): compare French van and English fan, winnow. Doublet of fan.

noun

1. A fan or other contrivance, such as a sieve, for winnowing grain.
2. A wing with which the air is beaten.
   He wheeled in air, and stretched his vans in vain; / His vans no longer could his flight sustain. 1717, John Dryden, Ovid's Metamorphoses, book XII
   Because these wings are no longer wings to fly / But merely vans to beat the air[…] 1930, T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday