hackney carriage
- noun
- /ˈhæknɪ ˈkærɪdʒ/
- UK
:
coche de alquiler
- The hackney carriage pulled up to the curb, ready to take on passengers.
Examples
-
I took a hackney carriage to the airport because it was raining outside.
-
Are you aware that the hackney carriage by which you arrived had a damaged wheel?
-
So we buy taxis, black Hackney carriages, we make sure they're fully inspected, well, from inside and out.
-
After the concert, we hailed a hackney carriage to get home quickly.
Synonyms
4
5.1
A vehicle with four wheels like a carriage or taxi that people pay to use
2
9.9
A small two-wheeled carriage pulled by a horse with a covered seat for passengers and a driver behind
A car you pay to take you where you want in a city
A horse-drawn carriage that people hire like a taxi
A four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage people hired in cities long ago
A small horse-drawn carriage people hire like a taxi in old Paris
How Modern
382
1.0
- UK
- UK
- Archaic
- Archaic
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a carriage available for hire / taxi' is directly derivable from combining 'hackney' (a vehicle for hire) with 'carriage' (a vehicle for carrying people). Although the compound is somewhat formal or historical in usage, its semantic composition is straightforward and a B1 learner who knows both constituents would understand the MWE.
Etymology
Hackney carriage comes from the place name Hackney and the word carriage. People kept horses for rent in Hackney, so a hackney meant a horse or vehicle 'for hire', and a hackney carriage was a carriage you could hire; that's why today it means a 'taxi'.