If you are referring to a " taxicab", here is the answer: Back in the 18th century, a well-to-do Englishman setting out for Sunday jaunt would have called for a "cabriolet," a sporty one-horse carriage which took its name from a French verb meaning "to leap." By the 19th century, the shortened form "cab" was being used to mean larger carriages available for hire in the city, and the modern ritual of "catching a cab" was born. Incidentally, cabs of the time were also known as "hackneys" or "hacks," from the Old French "haquenee" (horse), and to this day, cab drivers are known in many cities as "hackies." None of this shuttling around the city was done for free, of course. While previously the hackie would quote a price loosely based on the journey's distance at the beginning of a ride, in the late 1800's technology came to the world of cabs and hacks with the invention of the "taximeter" (from the French "taxe," tariff, and "metre," meter). Taximeters automatically measured the actual distance traveled by the cab, and were such a universal success that cabs soon became known as "taxicabs," or "taxis" for short.
ryle
2006-03-21 03:27:35 UTC
it literally means"To move slowly on the ground"
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