Mercedes

From Spanish Mercedes (Mary, Our Lady of Mercy). The car was named for Mercédès Jellinek, the daughter of Austrian businessman Emil Jellinek who ordered 36 cars from Gottlieb Daimler.^[1]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /məˈseɪdiz/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /mɚˈseɪdiz/

Mercedes (countable and uncountable, plural Mercedes)

1. A female given name from Spanish, equivalent to English Mercy occasionally borrowed from Spanish.
2. A place name:
   1. A city in Buenos Aires province, Argentina.
   2. A city, the capital of the Mercedes department, Corrientes province, Argentina.
   3. A department of Corrientes province, Argentina.
   4. A district of Heredia canton, Heredia province, Costa Rica.
   5. A municipality in Camarines Norte province, Philippines.
   6. A municipality in Eastern Samar province, Philippines.
   7. A city in Hidalgo County, Texas, United States.
   8. A city, the capital of the Soriano department, Uruguay.

Mercedes (plural Mercedes or Mercedeses)

1. Clipping of Mercedes-Benz, a car manufactured by Mercedes-Benz.

   Synonyms: Benz, Mercedes-Benz

   • 1989 November, Christopher Dickey, “At the Ali Baba Café”, in Vanity Fair, volume 52, number 11, New York, N.Y.: The Condé Nast Publications Inc., →ISSN, page 240:

     On a bridge that leads from Nile Street to the café in Tahrir Square where [Naguib] Mahfouz takes his morning coffee, there is often a beggar working his way among cars stuck in the city’s perpetual traffic jam. One of his legs is missing, and he hops up to the windows of the Mercedeses and Fiats on his remaining, bare foot.

   • 2015 July, J. R. Ward [pseudonym; Jessica Rowley Pell Bird Blakemore], chapter 31, in The Bourbon Kings, New York, N.Y.: New American Library, →ISBN, page 273:

     Samuel T. blew off the line-up of sheep at the base of Easterly’s hill, shooting his Jag around the Mercedeses, Audis, Porsches, and limos, and waving at the parkers who tried to flag him down so he’d stop.

   • 2018, Keith Gessen, A Terrible Country: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Viking, →ISBN, page 322:

     Anton and I saw each of them pull up in their Mercedeses and BMWs and park quasi-legally within a convenient distance of the diner.

• Merc (abbreviation)

Borrowed from Spanish Mercedes.

• IPA^(key): /mɛʁ.se.dɛs/
• (Quebec) IPA^(key): /mɛːʁsedaɪ̯s/

Mercedes m or f (plural Mercedes)

1. Mercedes (car manufactured by Mercedes-Benz)

• Merco (abbreviation)

Mercedes f

1. Alternative spelling of Mercédès

Ellipsis of Mercedes-Benz.

• IPA^(key): /mɛʁˈt͡seːdəs/
• Hyphenation: Mer‧ce‧des

Mercedes m (strong, genitive Mercedes, plural Mercedesse)

1. (automotive) Mercedes (car manufactured by Mercedes-Benz)

   Synonym: Benz

2. (by extension, informal) cream of the crop
   • 2013, Karl Wolfgang Biehusen, Baedeker Reiseführer Madrid, Baedeker, →ISBN, page 93:

     Der Mercedes unter den spanischen Schinken ist der Ibérico de Bellota.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 2021 November 22, Jens Spahn, but only indirectly, quotee, “Jens Spahn (CDU): Moderna als »guter, sicherer und sehr wirksamer Impfstoff«”, in Der Spiegel‎, →ISSN:

     Die Vakzine von Biontech sei der Mercedes und die von Moderna der Rolls-Royce.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

     Biontech's vaccine is the Mercedes and Moderna's the Rolls-Royce.

Ellipsis of Mercedes-Benz.

• Hyphenation: Mer‧ce‧des

Mercedes m or f (invariable)

1. (automotive) Mercedes (car manufactured by Mercedes-Benz)

From mercedes (“mercies”), shortened from María (de las) Mercedes, a Roman Catholic epithet of the Virgin Mary as "Our Lady of Mercy".

• IPA^(key): (Spain) /meɾˈθedes/
• IPA^(key): (Latin America, Philippines) /meɾˈsedes/
• Rhymes: -edes
• Syllabification: Mer‧ce‧des

Mercedes f

1. a female given name, equivalent to English Mercy (Mary, Our Lady of Mercy)

• → English: Mercedes
• → French: Mercédès, Mercedes
• → German: Mercedes