: an automobile that carries passengers for a fare usually determined by the distance traveled

Examples of taxicab in a Sentence

took a taxicab to the airport
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Police later released a photo taken from a security camera inside a taxicab, which gave a clear image of the suspect’s eyes. Holly Yan, CNN, 10 Dec. 2024 He’s been operating taxicabs, Ubers, or Lyfts since 1995, and even helped organize a taxi workers’ strike in the late ’90s. Wired Staff, WIRED, 20 Nov. 2024 Once approved, WeGo will pay for up to six trips home per year via taxicab or rental car. Katie Nixon, The Tennessean, 4 June 2024 There were roughly four million tipped workers in the U.S. in 2023 — including restaurant servers, bartenders, barbers, taxicab and rideshare drivers and hairdressers — representing only 2.5% of the total workforce, according to the Yale Budget Lab, a non-partisan policy research center. Bob Woods, CNBC, 4 Nov. 2024 See all Example Sentences for taxicab 

Word History

Etymology

taximeter cab

First Known Use

1899, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of taxicab was in 1899

Dictionary Entries Near taxicab

Cite this Entry

“Taxicab.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/taxicab. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.

Kids Definition

: an automobile that carries passengers for a fare usually based on the distance traveled
Etymology

from earlier taximeter cab, from French taximètre, literally "tax meter," and English cab, a shortened form of cabriolet "a one-horse carriage"

Word Origin
In the days of horse-drawn vehicles, one type of carriage was called a cabriolet, from a French word meaning "leap." This name was fitting since the carriage was so light it bounced or "leaped" about on the rough roads of the time. In time the name cabriolet was shortened to cab. These cabs were popular as vehicles carrying passengers for a fee. They were equipped with a taximeter, a device that automatically recorded the distance traveled and showed what fee or "tax" the passenger owed. In time this carriage or "cab" with its taximeter came to be called a taximeter cab. When the automobile took over from carriages the job of carrying passengers for a fee, it took over the name taximeter cab as well. This name was soon shortened to taxicab, and that was later shortened to taxi and sometimes just cab.

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