{"id":7370,"date":"2012-07-30T15:42:56","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T15:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=7370"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:15:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:15:59","slug":"cars-carts-and-chariots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=7370","title":{"rendered":"Cars, carts and chariots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week I was told that the English word car originally comes from the Irish word <em>carr<\/em> (donkey cart). Apparently when cars came to Ireland Irish speakers thought it was better to come up with a new word for them than to name them after the humble donkey cart, so the term <em>gluaiste\u00e1n<\/em> (&#8216;moving thing&#8217;) was coined. I hadn&#8217;t heard about this before, so thought I&#8217;d check it.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mrsuavefoto\/8351598758\/in\/photolist-8oyBVd-2hmf9jM-2hmdmqr-2hmf9cx-2hmf9oK-2hmdmt7-2hmdmcR-2g4pbHw-4E1H26-EY6RMo-2nHj6jB-2gZsBL3-2CqMZ5-dJ18m3-4osZ3e-4osWZP-4osYuk-4ox2ZC-2neYjgE-NRtSVn-4osYeX-4ox1N1-GKpFa3-4ox4tN-4ox4ey-4osXfc-2q3UZio-7gb5RZ-rgT1o4-6omcHL-3DcJkW-7gb5Ke-7geZAS-7fM9UQ-7MLNBU-7geZn1-DEfED-fm4YP9-sm7n-AUeQk6-boDp6T-8UkLN-6SDyDy-axHGNX-b7T5j-86Zppi\" title=\"Chariot\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/8189\/8351598758_b59f435083_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"422\" alt=\"Chariot\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/index.php?term=car\">Online Etymology Dictionary<\/a> the English word car has been used to refer to a wheeled vehicle since 1300 and comes from the Old Northern French word <em>carre<\/em>, from the Latin <em>carrum\/carrus<\/em>, which originally referred to a two-wheeled Celtic war chariot, from Gaulish <em>karros<\/em> (wagon), from Proto-Indo-European <em>*krsos<\/em>, from <em>*kers-<\/em> (to run). <\/p>\n<p>There are related words in Welsh <em>carr<\/em> (cart, wagon), and in Breton: <em>karr<\/em> (chariot, cart), in Cornish: <em>karr<\/em> (car), in Manx: <em>carr<\/em> (car), in Spanish and Italian: <em>carro<\/em> (cart, wagon) and probably in other languages.<\/p>\n<p>The word chariot comes from the same root as car, but cart probably comes from the Old Norse word <em>kart-r<\/em> (cart), according to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oed.com\/view\/Entry\/28267?rskey=FD6b4O&#038;result=1&#038;isAdvanced=false#eid\">OED<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Another vehicle-related word we discussed last week is <em>carbad<\/em> (chariot), from the Old Irish <em>carpat<\/em> (war-chariot, waggon). It is related to the Welsh <em>cerbyd<\/em> (vehicle, car, carriage, coach), the Old Breton <em>cerpit<\/em>, the Gaulish <em>carpentoracte<\/em>, from the Latin <em>corbis<\/em> (basket), from <em>carpentum<\/em> (two wheeled chariot), which was probably borrowed from Gaulish. The root idea is &#8216;wicker&#8217;, referring to the basket character of the body of these chariots. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week I was told that the English word car originally comes from the Irish word carr (donkey cart). Apparently when cars came to Ireland Irish speakers thought it was better to come up with a new word for them than to name them after the humble donkey cart, so the term gluaiste\u00e1n (&#8216;moving thing&#8217;) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,97,104,107,111,127,128,10,15,23,45,64,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breton","category-cornish","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-irish","category-italian","category-language","category-latin","category-manx","category-proto-indo-european","category-spanish","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7370"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24153,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7370\/revisions\/24153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}