Wagon

A wagon (or waggon in British English) is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draft animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people.

Wagons are immediately distinguished from carts (which have two wheels) and from lighter four-wheeled vehicles primarily for carrying people, such as carriages.

More specifically, a wain is a type of horse- or oxen-drawn, load-carrying vehicle, used for agricultural purposes rather than transporting people.

A wagon or cart, usually four-wheeled;[1] for example, a haywain, normally has four wheels, but the term has now acquired slightly poetical connotations, so is not always used with technical correctness.

A pin attaches the device to a chariot, a wagon or a coach, making the turning radius smaller.

[13] A delivery wagon was used to deliver merchandise such as milk, bread, produce, meat and ice to residential and commercial customers, predominantly in urban settings.

[7]: 441–5  By the end of the 19th century, delivery wagons were often finely painted, lettered and varnished, serving as image-builders and rolling advertisements.

It describes a car with a passenger compartment that extends to the back of the vehicle, that has no trunk, that has one or more rear seats that can be folded making space for carrying cargo, as well as featuring an opening tailgate or liftgate.

In warfare, large groups of supply wagons were used to support traveling armies with food and munitions, forming "baggage trains".

[19] In migration settings, such as the emigrant trails of the American West and the Great Trek of South Africa, wagons would travel together for support, navigation and protection.

A group of wagons may be used to create an improvised fort called a laager, made by circling them to form an enclosure.

In these settings, a chuckwagon is a small wagon used for providing food and cooking, essentially a portable kitchen.

Some examples are the paintings The Hay Wain and The Haywain Triptych, and on the Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar.