parking lot

• Audio (US):

  (file)

parking lot (plural parking lots)

2. (Canada, US, Philippines, Malaysia) A parking area, generally paved and open-air (sometimes with limited overhead covering), where automobiles may be left when not in use.

   Hypernyms: parking; car park, carpark (UK, Commonwealth)

   Meronyms: parking space, parking spot, parking place

   Coordinate term: parking garage

   Should we park in that parking lot, or in the garage up the street?

   • 1970, Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi”:

     They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

3. (US, figuratively, humorous) A road blocked by stop-start traffic.

   The 101 was a parking lot again today.

4. (figuratively, especially business, management) A holding area in which to set aside some question or concern for likely future consideration.

   Let's put this question in the parking lot for now, and we'll follow up on it later this week.

5. (US, figuratively) A place in a state of complete destruction, especially one achieved through military means.
   • 1992 April 15, Dore Gold, “The U.S.-Israel Relationship: Mounting Misperceptions in Washington”, in Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs‎^[1]:

     America believed it had smashed Israel’s greatest enemy and turned Iraq into a parking lot, so now Israel could take risks it had never been able to take before.

   • 2005, John Grevstad, Red State, Blue State: Defending the Liberal Jesus and Blue State Morality from Red State Religion and Hypocrisy, →ISBN, page 182:

     I was one of the people understanding the need to turn Afghanistan into a parking lot on the way to finding Bin Laden and bringing him to justice.

   • 2018, Norman G. Finkelstein, Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, →ISBN, page 56:

     Eager for “round two,” a member of Israel’s regional council adjoining Gaza exhorted the military that next time they should “flatten Gaza into a parking lot, destroy them.”

   • 2025 May 13, Richard Fausset, quoting Louis Prevost, “The Pope’s Florida Brother, a MAGA Disciple, Plans to ‘Tone It Down’”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     While the former called for end to the fighting in Gaza in his first Sunday address, Mr. Prevost said that after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israelis by members of Hamas, “I’d have flattened Gaza and made it a parking lot.”