barouche

English

A barouche.

Etymology

PIE word
*dwóh₁

From dialectal German Barutsche, from Italian baroccio, from Late Latin *birotium, from Latin birotus (“chariot”), from bi- (“two”) + rota (“wheel”). The spelling was altered in English as if the word had come from French. Doublet of britchka.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bæˈɹuːʃ/
• Rhymes: -uːʃ

Noun

barouche (plural barouches)

1. A four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage with collapsible half-hood, two double seats facing each other, and an outside seat for the driver.
   • 1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter VIII, in Mansfield Park: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 160:

     “What! cried Julia. Go box’d up three in a post-chaise in this weather, when we may have seats in a barouche! No, my dear Edmund, that will not quite do.”

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 23, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     [A]s the state barouche, with the greys and coachman in silver wig, and solemn footmen, drew up at the old churchyard-gate, there was such a crowd assembled there as had not been seen for many a long day.

   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 5, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:

     […] all the other children got up behind the barouche and fell off, and we saw them, with great concern, scattered over the surface of Thavies Inn as we rolled out of its precincts.

   • 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 3:

     Day was drooping on a fine evening in March as a brown barouche passed through the wrought-iron gates of Hare-Hatch House on to the open highway.

   • 1969, Anita Leslie, Lady Randolph Churchill, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 288:

     "Of course I was eager to put her affairs in order," George told my father, "but I found it a bit thick when expected to pay for Lord Randolph Churchill's barouche purchased in the ' 80s."

Derived terms

• barouchette