Forms: 4–7 carre, (5 Sc. caar), 7–8 carr, 6– car. [ME. carre, a. ONF. carre:—late L. carra, a parallel form to carrus, carrum (whence It., Sp. carro, Pr. car, char, ONF. car, F. char, ME. CHAR), a kind of 2-wheeled wagon for transporting burdens. The L. was a. OCelt. *karr-os, *karr-om, whence OIr. (also mod.Ir. and Gael.) carr masc. ‘wagon, chariot,’ OWelsh carr, Welsh càr, Manx carr, Bret. karr.
(Late L. carra also gave WGer. carra fem., in OHG. charra, Ger. karre, MDu. carre, Du. kar fem., Sw. karra, Da. karre.)]
1. A wheeled vehicle or conveyance:
a. generally—a carriage, chariot, cart, wagon, truck, etc. (Now little used in this wide sense.)
1382. Wyclif, Isa. lxvi. 16. His foure horsid carres [1388 charis].
c. 1400. Maundev., xi. (1839), 130. Ne Hors ne Carre nouther.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 62. Carre, carte, carrus, currus.
1480. Wardr. Acc. Edw. IV. (1830), 122. For cariage … of the Kinges carre … from Grenewiche.
1600. Holland, Livy, XXV. xiii. 556. They sent little above forty carres [vehicula].
1611. Bible, 1 Esdras v. 55. They gaue carres that they should bring Cedar trees from Libanus.
1750. Beawes, Lex Mercat. (1752), 399. Merchants, and others that use Carrs or Carts.
b. Since 16th c. chiefly poetic, with associations of dignity, solemnity or splendor; applied also to the fabled chariot of Phaëthon or the sun, and so to that in which the moon, stars, day, night, time, are figured to ride in their grand procession. Also in prose, a chariot of war, triumph, or pageantry.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. ii. 1. Phoebus fiery carre In hast was climbing up the Easterne hill.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., V. iii. 20. The weary Sun … by the bright Tract of his fiery carre.
1667. Milton, P. L., IX. 65. Four times [he] cross’d the Cart of Night.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 795. To draw the Carr of Jove’s Imperial Queen.
1738. Glover, Leonidas, III. 133. The king arose. ‘No more; prepare my car.’
1758. Johnson, Idler, No. 51, ¶ 9. A slave was placed on the triumphal car.
1852. Tennyson, Ode Wellington, 55. And a reverent people behold The towering car, the sable steeds.
1853. Robertson, Serm., Ser. III. vii. 93. Whose body opposing the progress of the car of Juggernaut is crushed beneath its monstrous wheels.
c. spec. Applied locally and at special periods to various vehicles in particular; also with defining words, as Irish car, etc.
1576. Act 18 Eliz., x. § 4. Cars or Drags, furnished for … Repairing … Highways.
1704. Worlidge, Dict. Rust. et Urb., s.v. Beech, Some approve it much for Cars.
1716. Lond. Gaz., No. 5446/2. Carts, Drays, Carts and Waggons.
1824–7. Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 240–1. This, which is the common Irish Car, is used throughout the province of Leinster…. The Irish ‘jaunting-car,’ [etc.] are wholly distinct and superior vehicles.
1838. Murray’s Handbk. N. Germany, 318. A Russian Mountain, down which visitors descend in cars.
Mod. In some provincial towns (e. g. Birmingham) ‘car’ means a four-wheeled hackney carriage, ‘cab’ meaning a hansom.
d. transf. A miniature carriage or truck used in experiments, etc.
1831. Brewster, Nat. Magic, iv. (1833), 87. The living object A B, the mirror M N, and the lens L L, must all be placed in a moveable car for the purpose of producing the variations in the size of the phantasms.
2. ‘In the United States the term has become restricted almost entirely to vehicles designed for travelling on railways’ (in Great Britain known as carriages, trucks, wagons, etc.), or to those used on tramways. Hence in U.S. passenger-car, sleeping-car, coal-car, freight-car, petroleum-car, provision-car, tool-car, etc. In Great Britain regularly applied to those of street tramways.
1837. Ht. Martineau, Soc. Amer., II. 181. During my last trip on the Columbia and Philadelphia rail road, a lady in the car had a shawl burned to destruction on her shoulders.
1850. Lyell, 2nd Visit U.S., II. 110. Here we … entered the cars of a railway built on piles.
1854. Thoreau, Walden, iv. (1886), 113. For the last half-hour I have heard the rattle of railroad-cars.
1879. Harlan, Eyesight, viii. 109. Straining the accommodative apparatus of the eye by reading in a car or carriage.
Mod. On account of the snow, the cars on the tramways in London ceased running at eight o’clock.
† 3. Formerly extended to a sleigh or hurdle without wheels. Obs. (So in Gaelic.)
c. 1400. Maundev., xi. 130. Thei let carye here vitaylle upon the yse, with carres that have no wheeles, that thei clepen scleyes.
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, II. 263. On a caar wnlikly thai him cast.
4. The part of a balloon in which aeronauts sit.
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Philos., III. xxxiii. 404. (Of Air Balloons) To this a sort of carr, or rather boat, was suspended by ropes.
1822. Imison, Sc. & Art, I. 171. The car, or boat, is made of wicker-work covered with leather.
1825. in Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 443. Mr. Graham … seated himself in the car of his vehicle.
† 5. The seven stars in the constellation of the Great Bear, called also the Plough or Wain. Obs.
1633. P. Fletcher, Purple Isl., I. li. None nam’d the stars, the North carres constant race.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 210. The Pleiads, Hyads, and the Northern Car.
6. Comb., as car-borne adj.; chiefly attrib., as car-boy, -driver, -gear, -nail, -ring, -wheel, etc., etc.; and esp. in U.S. in sense 2 (where carriage-, truck-, wagon- are used in Britain), as car-axle, -buffer, -conductor, -coupling, -door, -heater, -lamp, -seat, -spring, -starter, -wheel, -window, etc., etc.; carful, as many or as much as a car will hold. Also CARMAN, etc.
1812. Heber, trans. Pindar, V. 4, in Poems & Transl., 118. *Car-borne Psaumis on thy parent shine.
1832. G. Downes, Lett. Cont. Countries, I. 207. An occasional *carfull of priests.
1808. Anderson, Cumbld. Ball. (1819), 43. The *car-gear at Durdar she wan.
1605. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. iv. (1641), 32/2. *Car-nails fastned in a wheele.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, XII. xiii. And clench’d the *car-rings endlong and athwart.
1881. Chicago Daily Tribune, 14 May, 1/6. The employés of the Grand Trunk *car shops at Montreal have struck for an increase in wages.
1884. Bristol Times & Mirror, 2 April, 5/5. He is employed as a *car-washer by the Great Western Railway company, and … an engine engaged in shunting knocked him down.
Car sb.2 see CARR.
