pantechnicon

1. (chiefly British) A building or place housing shops or stalls where all sorts of (especially exotic) manufactured articles are collected for sale.Examples: "It is plain, that such writers do not rise to the very idea of a University. They consider it a sort of bazaar, or pantechnicon, in which wares of all kinds are heaped together for sale in stalls independent of each other; and that, to save the purchasers the trouble of running about from shop to shop; or an hotel or lodging house, where all professions and classes are at liberty to congregate, varying, however, according to the season, each of them strange to each, and about its own work or pleasure; […]"; "To-day will the mighty cobweb-dome receive its last survey, previous to the contractors for the building handing it over to the painters and decorators. When these have accomplished their task, then will the walls and counters begin to receive their varied and valuable stores of natural and artificial productions. Waggon-loads upon waggon-loads must, we know, be exhausted, and pantechnica emptied, before the vast area, so delicately covered, shall cry “Enough, enough;” […]"; "We have a few economic museums, it is true; but they lack the notoriety which results from national support; and, if not carefully watched by their philanthropic promoters, these otherwise excellent places are apt to degenerate into mere advertising pantechnica."British

2. (chiefly British) Originally pantechnicon van: a van, especially a large moving or removal van.Examples: "For we do not employ battleships as convoys, nor even as pantechnica conveying landing parties."; "The pantechnicon was running away. It had perceived the wrath to come and was fleeing. Its guardians had evidently left it imperfectly scotched or braked, and it had got loose. […] [T]he onrush of the pantechnicon constituted a clear crisis. Lower down the gradient of Brougham Street was more dangerous, and it was within the possibilities that people inhabiting the depths of the street might find themselves pitched out of bed by the sharp corner of a pantechnicon that was determined to be a pantechnicon."; "Not a day passes but some great pantechnica drive up to the door or drive down past my other window on the delivery road and drop off either £100,000 worth of Buddha or an early printed book, or a piece of furniture from a West African village."British