The word 'carriage' may or may not also refer to a part of a typewriter, a shopping cart or a lace-making machine.
Catherine II's carved, painted and gilded Coronation Coach (Hermitage Museum)
George VI and Queen Elizabeth in a landau with footmen and an outrider, Canada 1939
The classic definition of a carriage is a four-wheeled horse drawn private passenger vehicle with leaf springs (elliptical springs in the 19th century) or leather strapping for suspension, whether light, smart and fast or large and comfortable. Compare the public conveyances stagecoach, charabanc, and omnibus.
A vehicle that is not sprung is a wagon. An American buckboard or Conestoga wagon or "prairie schooner" was never taken for a carriage, but a waggonette was a pleasure vehicle, with lengthwise seats.
The word car meaning "wheeled vehicle", came from Norman French at the beginning of the 14th century; it was extended to cover automobile in 1896.
In the British Isles and many Commonwealth countries, a railway carriage (also called a coach) is a railroad car designed and equipped for transporting passengers.
In the United States, a baby carriage is a wheeled conveyance for reclining infants (in English outside North America: perambulator or pram), usually with a hood that can be adjusted to protect the baby from the sun.
In some parts of New England, a carriage (or shopping carriage) is sometimes a shopping cart.
MMaxi
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