Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A wheeled vehicle, especially a four-wheeled horse-drawn passenger vehicle, often of an elegant design.
  • noun Chiefly British A railroad passenger car.
  • noun A baby carriage.
  • noun A wheeled support or frame for carrying a heavy object, such as a cannon.
  • noun A moving part of a machine for holding or shifting another part.
  • noun The act or process of transporting or carrying.
  • noun The cost of or the charge for transporting.
  • noun The manner of holding and moving one's head and body; bearing. synonym: posture.
  • noun Archaic Management; administration.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In saddlery, a long handle fitted at one end with a knob and at the other with a branch for receiving a small circular tool: used for ornamenting leather.
  • noun The act of carrying, bearing, transporting, or conveying.
  • noun Specifically
  • noun The carrying of goods, persons, etc.; the business of transportation.
  • noun That which is carried; goods transported; load; burden; freight; baggage.
  • noun In Scots law, the service of a horse and cart.
  • noun The price or expense of carrying.
  • noun That which is used for carrying or transporting, especially on or over a solid surface.
  • noun A wheeled stand or support: commonly in composition: as, a gun-carriage, a block-carriage for mortars, etc. See gun-carriage.
  • noun Any part of a machine which carries another part: as, the carriage of a mule-spinner, a shafting, a type-writer, etc.
  • noun That part of the frame of the old hand printing-press which supported and carried the form of types on the bed (or coffin, as it was then called), in its movement to and from the platen or impressing surface. Hand-presses are now made without carriage-frames, and with ribs running in grooved rails.
  • noun In carpentry, the timber-frame which supports the steps of a wooden stair.
  • noun (f ) The straps or bands by which the sword was hung from the waist-belt in the sixteenth century. See hanger.
  • noun The act of carrying or taking from an enemy; conquest; acquisition.
  • noun Tax; imposition.
  • noun The manner of carrying or managing one's person; hence, behavior; conduct; deportment; manners.
  • noun The act or manner of carrying out business; management.
  • noun Bearing; import; tenor; meaning.
  • noun In equity practice, control or conduct.
  • noun A drain; a furrow cut for the purpose of carrying off water.
  • noun A customary dry measure used for lime, consisting of 64 heaped bushels.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete That which is carried; burden; baggage.
  • noun The act of carrying, transporting, or conveying.
  • noun The price or expense of carrying.
  • noun That which carries of conveys
  • noun A wheeled vehicle for persons, esp. one designed for elegance and comfort.
  • noun A wheeled vehicle carrying a fixed burden, .
  • noun A part of a machine which moves and carries of supports some other moving object or part.
  • noun A frame or cage in which something is carried or supported.
  • noun The manner of carrying one's self; behavior; bearing; deportment; personal manners.
  • noun The act or manner of conducting measures or projects; management.
  • noun a horse kept for drawing a carriage.
  • noun (Arch.) a canopy or roofed pavilion covering the driveway at the entrance to any building. It is intended as a shelter for those who alight from vehicles at the door; -- sometimes erroneously called in the United States porte-cochère.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A wheeled vehicle, generally drawn by horse power.
  • noun UK A rail car, esp. designed for the conveyance of passengers.
  • noun A manner of walking and moving in general; how one carries oneself, bearing, gait.
  • noun archaic One's behaviour, or way of conducting oneself towards others.
  • noun The part of a typewriter supporting the paper.
  • noun US, New England A shopping cart.
  • noun UK A stroller; a baby carriage.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English cariage, from Norman French, from Old North French carier, to carry; see carry.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old Northern French cariage, from carier ("to carry").

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Examples

  • /I have only to say 'I should like to see such a thing,' or 'to be at such a place,' and next day a carriage is at the door, or a boat is on the river to take me if I/[Page 27]/please to the ends of the earth.

    Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle 1883

  • But if your carriage is announced early, or circumstances make it necessary for you to leave in advance of others, do so without exciting observation, and make your adieus to your hostess or host, or both, in a low voice; but if they cannot easily be found, retire quietly without bidding them good-night.

    A Manual of Etiquette with Hints on Politeness and Good Breeding Sophia Orne 1873

  • 'This moment, if you would have the goodness: my carriage is at the door; and Mrs Delacour will be so kind to excuse –'

    Belinda 1801

  • But I believe that my "carriage" is rather graceful than otherwise on them!

    Leaves from Juliana Horatia Ewing's "Canada Home" Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing 1896

  • Some time afterwards an off-duty police officer, Elizabeth Kenworthy, had made her way into the bombed second carriage from the third.

    7/7 inquest: Off-duty policewoman saved my life, says survivor Esther Addley 2010

  • “At the moment when 9 passes to 0, a lever will be moved, thus recording the necessity of a carriage to the figure above; the carriage is made subsequently, and for the Analytical Engine a method of performing the carriages all simultaneously was invented by my father which he called ‘Anticipating’ Carriage.” —

    Babbage-Boole Digital Arithmetical and Logical Mill: Part 1 « The Half-Baked Maker 2009

  • I think it is Maurice's sunny character that is most appealing: the dust-jacket cover of the biography shows him leaning out of a train carriage window, trilby in one hand, pipe in the other, smiling expectantly.

    Maurice Tate: An extraordinary response for an extraordinary man Stephen Bates 2010

  • PS: going to have to buy the barrell only on the Williams Gun ... carriage is too pricey.

    The James Rifle 2009

  • Quite what occurred in the train carriage is open to speculation, and Dessaix ticks other writers off for speculating – notably Julian Barnes who wrote a short story about the encounter.

    The Mysteries of Russian Love « Tales from the Reading Room 2009

  • The glorious little pumpkin carriage for the eldest son of the Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria, meanwhile, may or may not have been equipped with harnesses of blue velvet and bridles fastened with silver buckles, but it is something of a stretch to base this claim upon documents relating to an altogether different princely court.

    Well, they would, wouldn’t they? 2009

Comments

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  • What people in Massachusetts call a shopping cart.

    December 30, 2007

  • Slovak insult: 'May the horses fuck the carriage'.

    Source: The language hat.

    March 4, 2008

  • "Though May’s outline was slightly heavier, as her goddesslike build had foretold, her athletic erectness of carriage, and the girlish transparency of her expression, remained unchanged: but for the slight languor that Archer had lately noticed in her she would have been the exact image of the girl playing with the bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley on her betrothal evening."

    - Edith Wharton, 'The Age of Innocence'.

    September 20, 2009

  • "In saddlery, a long handle fitted at one end with a knob and at the other with a branch for receiving a small circular tool: used for ornamenting leather."

    -- from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

    January 26, 2016