Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun colloquial A
coachman ; adriver ; especially, one who drives furiously.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Nelson Herbert 6 months ago just awesome in low light. superb job jehu Garcia 6 months ago
Nocturne on Vimeo 2010
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There, Miss Howe, is the reason given for their jehu-driving.
Clarissa Harlowe 2006
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Grogan surveyed the place for a moment and then turned to his jehu.
Little Lost Sister Virginia Brooks
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The purpose of the whip was well understood by the trained oxen, and that implement enabled a skillful driver to regulate the course of a wagon almost as accurately as if the team were of horses, with the reins in the hands of an expert jehu.
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Carl Schwartz was the jehu of the outfit, and sat on the driver's seat,
Ted Strong in Montana With Lariat and Spur Edward C. Taylor
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Chip, satisfied with his work, left the physician, and whistling for his jehu, drove back to the hotel.
Jim Cummings Or, The Great Adams Express Robbery A. Frank [pseud.] Pinkerton
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However, at last our resourceful jehu came to the rescue.
The Art of Interior Decoration Grace Wood
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Upon the box sat an old jehu, Sandy Ellis by name, who had driven that vehicle for quarter of a century over that route.
Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; or, Leagued Against the James Boys
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He was driven up in a cart by a country jehu, and leaping out, there followed him a couple of friends.
The Young Seigneur Or, Nation-Making Wilfrid Ch��teauclair
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You can go from one end of Madrid to the other for about 40 cents, including tip to the jehu.
The Spanish Nations and Their Increasing Interest To Us 1917
thedayhascome commented on the word jehu
/JAY hoo/ n · A reckless driver.
August 7, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word jehu
Personally I'd pronounce this /ˈdʒiːhjuː/ JEE hyoo. Since when did people start Italianizing Hebrew names?
August 7, 2008
seanahan commented on the word jehu
I'm pretty sure Jesus is an Italianization (Latinization really) of the original name.
August 11, 2008
vanishedone commented on the word jehu
Off the top my my head I think 'Jesus' may be Latin via Greek from the original Hebrew (Aramaic?).
August 11, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word jehu
No, Italian is not Latin, though admittedly it would save a lot of etymological shoe leather if we called them all Eurasian. The Italianization in question is the supposition that all foreign languages are more or less the same up to some pesky isomorphism, so pronouncing them like Italian/French is good enough.
August 11, 2008
bilby commented on the word jehu
Of course Italian isn't Latin, but once upon a time it was - the so-called volgare - so I don't have any problem with the way seanahan put it. I think you're a bit flattering about how large French/Italian loom on our horizons: most English speakers would be familiar with Reykjavik for example. J does not occur naturally in Italian. About the only offering in current use is the football club name Juventus, happily pronounced with /dʒ/ by most non-Italians anyway.
August 11, 2008
rolig commented on the word jehu
Of course, Jehu is pronounced JEE hyoo or JEE-hoo in the traditional U.S. pronunciation, which is the one I am familiar with from my childhood, when I attended Sunday school regularly and, at least until my teens, used either the King James' or Revised Standard version of the Bible (which conveniently indication the "proper" pronunciation of such names). The assumption that this name is pronounced JAY-hoo, which thedayhascome put forward and qroqqa corrected, derives, I suspect, not from any Italianization or Gallicization or Latinization of the name, but rather from its similarity to the name Jesu, an archaic or poetic German version of the name Jesus and which is pronounced, more or less, YAY-zoo, though a lot of native English speakers pronouce the name JAY-soo, especially when they see it in the English title of Bach's chorale, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," primarily for euphonic reasons, i.e. to preserve the alliteration of the song ("Jesu - joy"). So if someone knows the name "Jesu" from the Bach chorale, and then encounters the unfamiliar name "Jehu", it's not unreasonable (though incorrect) to assume the latter is similarly pronounced.
Also, the answer to qroqqa's question, "When did people i.e. English speakers start Italianizing Hebrew names?" is "Never, really," although as seanahan's comment suggests, no Hebrew names, from the Bible at least, came into the English language without first going through Greek and Latin, e.g., Matthew, James, John, Mary, Jeremy, David, Jonathan, etc. – all these names would have come into English via the Vulgate (the Latin Bible).
August 11, 2008
seanahan commented on the word jehu
There is also something call hyper-foreignization, although I don't know that it is at all in play here.
August 12, 2008