The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hansom \Han"som\ (h[a^]n"s[u^]m), n., Hansom cab \Han"som cab`\ (k[a^]b`). [From the name of the inventor.] A light, low, two-wheeled covered carriage with the driver's seat elevated behind, the reins being passed over the top.
He hailed a cruising hansom . . . `` 'Tis the gondola
of London,'' said Lothair.
--Beaconsfield.
Cab \Cab\ (k[a^]b), n. [Abbrev. fr. cabriolet.]
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A kind of close carriage with two or four wheels, usually a public vehicle. ``A cab came clattering up.''
--Thackeray.Note: A cab may have two seats at right angles to the driver's seat, and a door behind; or one seat parallel to the driver's, with the entrance from the side or front.
Hansom cab. See Hansom.
The covered part of a locomotive, in which the engineer has his station.
--Knight.
WordNet
n. a two-wheeled horse-drawn covered carriage with the driver's seat above and behind the passengers [syn: hansom]
Wikipedia
The hansom cab is a kind of horse-drawn carriage designed and patented in 1834 by Joseph Hansom, an architect from York. The vehicle was developed and tested by Hansom in Hinckley, Leicestershire, England. Originally called the Hansom safety cab, it was designed to combine speed with safety, with a low centre of gravity for safe cornering. Hansom's original design was modified by John Chapman and several others to improve its practicability, but retained Hansom's name.
Cab is a shortening of cabriolet, reflecting the design of the carriage. It replaced the hackney carriage as a vehicle for hire; with the introduction of clockwork mechanical taximeters to measure fares, the name became taxicab.
Hansom cabs enjoyed immense popularity as they were fast, light enough to be pulled by a single horse (making the journey cheaper than travelling in a larger four-wheel coach) and were agile enough to steer around horse-drawn vehicles in the notorious traffic jams of nineteenth-century London. There were up to 7500 hansom cabs in use at the height of their popularity and they quickly spread to other cities (such as Dublin) in the United Kingdom, as well as continental European cities, particularly Paris, Berlin, and St Petersburg. The cab was introduced to other British Empire cities and to the United States during the late 19th century, being most commonly used in New York.
Usage examples of "hansom cab".
It was impossible to hire a hansom cab anywhere in Spitalfields—.
I wanted to ask them how they could tell all this from the tilt of a hansom cab, but the answer would only make me feel a fool for not being able to tell myself.
It was, at least, worth the asking, although he doubted a woman as shabbily clad as the one the men in Davey's pub had described would've been able to afford the cost of a hansom cab fare.
He ran out into the street, waving wildly at a hansom cab just up the block.
Terence and I, ignoring the conventions of class, grabbed the hampers, satchel, parcels, rugs, and Jane out of the hansom cab and flung them willy-nilly into the second-class carriage.
The bus was edging toward the curb, I beckoned to Kate, and we got off directly in front of a two-wheeled hansom cab parked just short of the corner.
She was busily blacking another gentleman's boots when a hansom cab rattled to a halt some distance from the kerbside and a well-dressed gentleman swung himself down.