britchka

English

Britchka

Alternative forms

• britschka, britscha, britska, britshka, britzka, britzska

Etymology

From Russian бричка (brička), or its source, Polish bryczka, diminutive form of bryka (“carriage”), probably ultimately from Italian biroccio.

Noun

britchka (plural britchkas)

1. (now chiefly historical) A type of horse-drawn carriage, with a foldable roof covering.
   • 1842, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (trans. C. J. Hogarth), chapter 2, in Dead Souls:

     [H]e cracked his whip and the britchka leapt forward with increased speed over the cobblestones.

   • 1847, Xavier Hommaire De Hell, chapter 22, in Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c‎^[1]:

     The appearance of our caravan was curious and grotesque. Our britchka was drawn by three camels, taken in tow by a man on foot.

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 52, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     A britzka came up at this moment as the three men were speaking.

   • 1854, Leo Tolstoy (trans. C. J. Hogarth), Boyhood, ch. 2 – The Thunderstorm:

     At length, Vassili got up and covered over the britchka, the coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak and lifted his cap to make the sign of the cross at each successive thunderclap, and the horses pricked up their ears and snorted.

   • 2002, Josepth Roth, translated by Michael Hofmann, The Radetsky March, Folio Society, published 2015, page 158:

     The conveyance stopped, a straw-coloured britshka, the summer conveyance of Count Chojnicki.

Synonyms

• brisky

References

• “britchka”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.