Forms: 5 caryare, -our, 5–6 -er, 6 cariar, -ier, carryar, 6–7 -er, 6– carrier. [f. CARRY v. + -ER1.]
1. One who or that which carries, in various senses of the verb; a bearer.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. lxi. (1495), 178. A veyne is berer and caryer of blode.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 62. Caryare, vector, vectitor.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. lxxiv. 16. The sonne as the cheef caryer thereof [i.e., of light].
1580. Baret, Alv., C 129. A carier of letters.
1592. Let. Univ. Cambridge, in Payne Collier, Annals Stage, I. 292. The most ordinary carriers and dispensers of the infection of the plague.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 13. Winds … will drive The loaded Carriers from their Ev’ning Hive.
1844–57. G. Bird, Urin. Deposits, 99. Blood-discs, the reputed carriers of oxygen.
1884. Spectator, 12 July, 913/1. To obtain carriers for the dead.
b. A bearer of a message, letter, etc.
1588. Shaks., Tit. A., IV. iii. 86. What sayes Iupiter I aske thee? Why villaine art not thou the Carrier? Ibid. (1598), Merry W., II. ii. 141. This Puncke is one of Cupid’s Carriers.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., III. ii. IV. i. (1651), 528. The very carrier that comes from him to her is a most welcome guest, if he bring a letter.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., IV. viii. These birds are employed as the most expeditious carriers.
1839. Thackeray, Fatal Boots, xi. Being a letter-carrier.
c. slang. (See quot.)
1725. New Cant. Dict., Carriers, a Sett of Rogues … employ’d to look out, and watch upon the Roads, at Inns, &c., in order to carry Information to their respective Gangs, of a booty in Prospect.
d. Techn. Applied to particular parts of instruments and machines that act as bearers and transmittors; in Mech. esp. a piece of iron in a lathe by which what is being turned is carried round in the machine.
1858. Greener, Gunnery, 201. A carrier is then secured on a part of the plug that projects out of the breech-end of the barrel, and then put into the face-plate of the lathe, which carries it round.
1870. Tyndall, Heat, iv. § 114. As long as the rocker is able to communicate sufficient heat to the carrier on which it rests.
1881. Maxwell, Electr. & Magn., I. 295. The moveable conductors are called Carriers.
2. One whose occupation it is to carry loads, a porter. Also in comb., as water-carrier, etc.
c. 1511. 1st Eng. Bk. Amer. (Arb.), Introd. 35/2. Cariers that go with the olyphantes, and cary our harneys and vitales.
1528. MS. Acc. St. John’s Hosp., Canterb., Paid for … the hay makers & cariars.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 72/1. A Bearer or Carrier … attend Merchants Cellars and Grocers Shops, to carry their Goods … on their Backs or Shoulders.
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 25 Nov., 2/2. His carriers, thirty Malays, are following.
3. spec. One who undertakes for hire the conveyance of goods and parcels (usually on certain routes, and at fixed times). The most familiar current sense.
In the legal sense the term carrier or common carrier, includes any person or association of persons undertaking, for payment, the transport of goods by land or water, as stage coach proprietors, railway companies, parcel delivery companies, owners and masters of ships, etc.
1471. Will, in Ripon Ch. Acts, 154. Rog. Brounfeld de Ebor,’ caryour.
c. 1500. Cocke Lorell’s B. (1843), 10. Carryers, carters, and horskepers.
1533–4. Act 25 Hen. VIII., viii. The poore cariers … repairynge wekely and monthely to your citee of London.
1592. Greene, Art Conny-catch., III. 8. I haue … a Cheese from my Vncle … which I receiued of the Carrier.
1642. Declar. Lords and Comm., 31 Dec., 3. The robbing of the common Carriers and Trawnters.
1746. Berkeley, Lett., Wks. 1871, IV. 308. My wife … sends you a present by the Cork carrier.
1774. Johnson, Lett., 29 Jan., in Boswell. If anything is too bulky for the post, let me have it by the carrier.
Mod. Inscription on Vans, etc.: ‘The North Western Railway Company, carriers.’
fig. 1583. Babington, Commandm. (1590), 455. Our senses, the common carriers of conceits vnto vs.
b. Applied to a nation or community who conduct the commerce between distant parts of the world.
1673. Temple, Observ. United Prov., vi. 210–1. Their Sea-men being, as they have properly been call’d, the common Carriers of the World.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., IV. ii. The Dutch were … the great carriers of Europe.
1861. Goschen, For. Exch., 18. The country which becomes the carrier for others.
1875. Merivale, Gen. Hist. Rome, xvii. (1877), 98. The Carthaginians made themselves the common carriers of this vast population.
4. A CARRIER-PIGEON; also the breed of these, though not used for carrying purposes.
1641. Wilkins, Mercury, xvi. (1707), 68. A smaller sort of Pigeon, of a light Body, and swift Flight … called by the Name of Carriers.
1741. Compl. Fam.-Piece, III. 512. The Carriers [are valuable] for their swift Return home, if carried to a Distance.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., xi. (1873), 306. Varieties between the rock-pigeon and the carrier.
1862. Huxley, Lect. Working Men, 105, note. ‘Homing’ birds … used as carriers are not ‘carriers’ in the fancy sense.
1867. Tegetmeier, Pigeons, vii. 75.
5. A conduit or drain for water, etc. Cf. CARRIAGE 31.
1797. A. Young, Agric. Suffolk, 157. A carrier or master drain, into which all the single drains empty themselves…. I strongly recommend these carrier ditches to be open.
1872. Daily News, 12 Oct., 5/5. The liquid flows gently from the delivering carriers along the depressions of the furrows for a period of six hours.
1883. Pall Mall Gaz., 16 Oct., 4/2. It is lifted by a sludge pump into an underground carrier and deposited in earth tanks.
6. With advbs., as carrier about, on; cf. CARRY v.
1556. T. Hoby, trans. Castiglione’s Courtyer, II. (1561), N iij b. He [Courtier] shall be no carier about of trifling newes.
c. 1661. Argyle’s Last Will, &c. in Harl. Misc. (1746), VIII. 30/2. A most indefatigable Carrier on of his Designs.
1884. in Law Times Rep., 8 March, 45/2. The carriers on of the business.
7. Comb., as carrier-block, -pin; carrier-bird, applied to the pelican, the carrier-pigeon; carrier-shell, -trochus, a genus of mollusks, remarkable for the habit of attaching pieces of stone, coral, etc., to their shells.
1802. Southey, Thalaba, V. iv. And journeying onward, blest the *Carrier Bird.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., xxv. But this it was that made me move As light as carrier-birds in air.
1881. Greener, Gun, 162. To throw the cartridges upon a *carrier-block in the rear.
1884. F. J. Britten, Watch & Clockm., 104. Holes … to receive the *carrier pin.
1854. Woodward, Mollusca (1856), 15. The *carrier-trochus cements shells and corals to the margin of its habitation.
