DMV

1. 1
   nounUSinitialism

   Initialism of department of motor vehicles.

   She spent the whole morning at the DMV updating her vehicle registration.

   The DMV rolled out a new online appointment system last year.

   Note

   Department here is the government word, one of the principal divisions of the executive. The initialism takes the, forms the plural DMVs, and sits comfortably before another noun, as in DMV officials. It also stands for the ordeal of waiting. Primus's 1993 song "DMV" spells hell with those letters. The examiner in Amy Heckerling's Clueless (1995) styles himself "the messiah of the DMV."

2. 2
   proper nounUS

   Washington, D.C., together with the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia, considered as a single region.

   Many tech workers in the DMV commute into Washington each weekday.

   The DMV is home to a thriving go-go music scene rooted in the local Black community.

   Note

   A regional nickname for the capital area, built from the initials of its three parts. It takes the, just like the motor-vehicles agency that shares its letters, so context does the sorting. People live, work and commute in the DMV-as-region, but they stand in line at the DMV-as-office. When the meaning could go either way, the surrounding verbs usually settle it.

3. 3
   nounUKinitialism

   Initialism of deserted medieval village.

   Aerial photography revealed the layout of a DMV beneath the present-day pasture.

   Excavation of the DMV uncovered the foundations of a small medieval church.

   Note

   A landscape archaeologist's term, built on the adjective deserted, meaning abandoned or emptied of people, rather than on the verb. It names a settlement abandoned, often between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, that survives today mainly as earthworks and crop marks. Across the Atlantic the same three letters belong to the motor-vehicles agency.

4. 4
   nouninitialism

   Initialism of dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus.

   Researchers traced the nerve fibers back to the DMV in the brainstem.

   Neurons in the DMV help regulate digestion and heart rate.

   Note

   A landmark of the brainstem: the vagus nerve's motor nucleus in the medulla. It is the source of the preganglionic parasympathetic fibers that reach much of the chest and abdominal organs. Dorsal is the anatomist's "toward the back," fixing its position, and motor says what it sends out. In technical writing the initialism is spelled out once and then used freely.

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