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Are you a part-timer, full-timer, or weekender? Once you become an RV owner, you have to learn the RV vocabulary! Learn the meanings of common RV terms frequently used. Definitions for each term are provided below:

• Aluminum Exterior Sidewalls: This term refers to the outside construction of your RV. It consists of a wooden framing with an aluminum exterior and batten insulation.
• Auxiliary Battery: An extra battery to run your 12-volt equipment.
• Basement: The large storage area underneath your RV’s floor accessible from outside storage doors.
• Basement Model: An RV that incorporates large storage areas underneath a raised chassis.
• Black Water Capacity: The amount of wastewater from the toilet that your RV’s black water tank can hold.
• Boondocking: Camping in an RV without the benefit of electricity, freshwater, and sewer utilities. Also called dispersed camping, primitive camping, or dry camping.
• Booth Dinette: Dining area with bench seats on opposite sides and a table in-between. Many RVs have booth dinettes that convert to an extra sleeping space.
• Brake Controller: A device mounted inside the tow vehicle that will apply the trailer brakes simultaneously when the tow vehicle brakes.
• CCC (Cargo Carrying Capacity): The maximum weight limit for personal items you can add to an RV.
• Chassis: It’s the framework your RV is built upon. The chassis generally includes the engine and transmission.
• Chassis Battery: The battery in your motorhome that operates 12-volt components of the drivetrain.
• Cockpit: Front of your motorhome where the driver pilot seat and passenger co-pilot seats are located.
• Diesel Pusher: Refers to a diesel motorhome with the engine located in the rear of the RV. The engine location helps push the RV down the road and provides a smoother, quieter ride.
• Dinghy: A vehicle towed behind a motorhome, sometimes with two wheels on a special trailer called a tow dolly, but often with all four wheels on the ground.
• Dry Weight: The weight of the RV as it comes off the assembly line. Doesn’t include supplies, water, fuel, or passenger weights.
• Ducted A/C: Describes an RV wherein air conditioning is supplied through ducts in the ceiling and vents throughout the RV.
• Ducted Heat: Describes an RV wherein heat is supplied through ducts in the floor and vents throughout the RV.
• Dump Station: Refers to a location where you can safely and legally dump your black and gray water tanks. Typically, a concrete pad with a tank underneath the ground.
• Enclosed/Sealed Underbelly: This term describes an RV whose bottom surface has been closed shut or insulated to help protect against temperature changes.
• Fifth-Wheel Trailer (Fiver or Fifth Wheel): Trailers designed to be coupled to a special hitch that is mounted over the rear axle in the bed of a pickup truck or a specialized vehicle prepared for fifth-wheel trailer compatibility.
• Fresh Water Capacity: The amount of drinkable water an RV’s freshwater tank can hold.
• Full Hookup: RV term that describes a campsite that offers a water supply, sewer/septic, and electricity.
• Galley: Another term referring to the kitchen of an RV.
• GAWR (Gross Axle Weight Rating): This is the total allowable weight on each individual axle, which includes the weight of tires, wheels, brakes, and the axle itself.
• GCWR (Gross Combination Weight Rating): This is the total allowable weight of the tow vehicle, trailer, all cargo in each, hitching, fluids, and occupants.
• GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating): The maximum weight an RV must not exceed to ensure safe traveling. Includes the vehicle’s chassis, body, engine, fluids, fuel, accessories, passengers, cargo, etc.
• Hitch: The connection between a tow vehicle and an RV.
• Hitch Capacity: The towing capacity of the receiver hitch.
• Holding Tanks: Term that refers to an RV’s freshwater tank, gray water tank, and black water tank.
• House Battery: The battery in a motorhome that operates the 12-volt electrical system within the motorhome.
• Hula Skirt: A guard or skirt installed on the RV’s back bumper to protect the vehicles directly behind them from debris thrown up by the RV’s rear wheels. It’s usually the length of the rear bumper and resembles a “short” version of a Hawaiian hula-skirt, hence the term.
• Laminated Walls: This term refers to the outside wall construction of an RV. Typically, this consists of an aluminum frame, styrofoam, fiberglass sheeting treated with a gel-coat, and then laminated.
• Length: Front to back measurement of an RV.
• Leveling Jacks: Equipment used to make sure an RV sits level on the ground.
• LP Gas: Liquid Petroleum or another term for Propane.
• Moochdocking: Dry camping for free on someone’s property, such as a relative or friend.
• O/N: Overnight Parking for RVs. “No O/N Parking” means “No Overnight Parking.”
• Non-potable Water: Water not suitable for human consumption.
• Park Model: A specific type of RV that is designed to be permanently parked in one area.
• Reefer: A slang term for a refrigerator.
• Slide-outs: Expanding walls or sections of an RV.
• Sticks N Bricks: A RV slang word for a standard house.
• Sway Bar System: Equipment designed to reduce or eliminate side-to-side sway movement of a towable RV.
• Tongue Weight: The actual weight pressing down on the hitch ball located on the tow vehicle. Generally, the tongue weight is 10% to 15% of the gross vehicle weight (GVW).
• Tow Rating: The maximum weight a tow vehicle can safely tow, determined by the vehicle manufacturer.
• Underbelly: Term used to describe the bottom surface of an RV; similar to the undercarriage.
• W/E: A campsite that offers only water and electric hookups.
• Weight Distribution System: Transfers the weight from the tongue of the trailer and redistributes it to the front of the tow vehicle.
• Wheel Base: The distance between the center lines of the primary axles on an RV.
• Width: The side to side measurement of an RV that doesn’t include the added width of extended slide-outs.

Lifestyle, and Pet Phrases

• DH and DW: Darling (or Dear) Husband and Wife.
• Full Timer: RVers who live & travel in their RV year-round, usually without a Sticks 'n Bricks home anywhere. (See below)
• Newbee: Anyone new to RVing.
• Right Laner: Staying in the right lane on a freeway so you don't have to pass other drivers.
• SKP: A member of the Escapees National RV Club.
• Snowbird: RVer that typically lives in their Sticks 'n Bricks home during the summer season, and travels to warmer locations in the winter.
• Sticks 'n Bricks:Also known as S&B. What RVers call a regular type of house.
• TTWF:Traveling together without following.
• WAIF:What Am I Forgetting?
• WDITT:Why Didn't I Think of That?
• WTF: We tried to fix it.
• YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary.
• Blue Boy: Portable wheeled plastic tote used to transport waste tank sewage from the RV to the dump station, usually towed at slow speed by the tow vehicle.
• Fiver: Another name for a fifth-wheel RV.
• Honey Wagon: A truck or trailer with large liquid tank on it that comes around to pump out the RV waste tanks.

Now that you have those terms, go become the best RVer you can be! Whether you are in your RV for a couple of weeks of the month, every day or just the weekends, knowing these terms will help you understand your RV more.