Log in or Sign up
  1. calash love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A light carriage with two or four low wheels and a collapsible top.
  2. n. A top for this or a similar carriage.
  3. n. A woman's folding bonnet of the late 18th century.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A light carriage with low wheels, either open or covered with a folding top which can be let down at pleasure. The Canadian calash is two-wheeled, and has a seat on the splashboard for the driver.
  2. n. The folding hood or top usually fitted to such a carriage. Specifically called a calash-top.—3. A hood in the form of calash-top worn by women in the eighteenth century and until about 1810. It was very large and full, to cover the head-dresses of the period, and was made on a framework of light hoops, capable of being folded back on the shoulders, or raised, by pulling a ribbon, to cover the head and project well over the face. Similar hoods had been worn at earlier times, but the reintroduction under this name appears to date from 1765.
  3. n. A primitive one-horse springless cart of the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, house-chairs being used for seats. It is still used to a limited extent.
  4. To furnish with a calash.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A sort of light 'convertible' carriage with a folding hood.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A light carriage with low wheels, having a top or hood that can be raised or lowered, seats for inside, a separate seat for the driver, and often a movable front, so that it can be used as either an open or a closed carriage.
  2. n. In Canada, a two-wheeled, one-seated vehicle, with a calash top, and the driver's seat elevated in front.
  3. n. A hood or top of a carriage which can be thrown back at pleasure.
  4. n. A hood, formerly worn by ladies, which could be drawn forward or thrown back like the top of a carriage.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the folding hood of a horse-drawn carriage
  2. n. a woman's large folded hooped hood; worn in the 18th century

Etymologies

  1. French calèche, from German Kalesche, from Czech kolesa, from pl. of kolo, koles-, wheel, from Old Church Slavonic. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

Show 10 more examples...

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘calash’.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • knitandpurl Well, I knew what this word meant in 2008 but had since forgotten. Rediscovered it today, thus:

    "Certainly one finds the most and greatest elegance on Tauentzienstrasse; the Kurfürstendamm is delightful with its trees and calashes."
    Berlin Stories by Robert Walser, translated by Susan Bernofsky, p 19 of the NYRB paperback May 8, 2012

  • knitandpurl David Crystal writes of a toll-board sign in Porthmadog in Wales from the early nineteenth century, which begins thus: "For every Horse or other Beast of Draught drawing any Coach, Sociable, Berlin, Landau, Chariot, Vis-a-Vis, Chaise, Calash, Chais-marine, Curricle, Chair, Gig, Whisky, Caravan, Hearse, Litter, Waggon, Wain, Cart, Dray, or other Carriage, any Sum not exceeding One Shilling:"
    (By Hook or By Crook, p 38) Dec 15, 2008

  • chained_bear Or... "Two-wheeled, horse-drawn carts known as calashes continually came and went."
    --Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, 2 May 1, 2008

  • reesetee Looks like this. Nov 14, 2007

Tweets

Looking for tweets for calash.

‘calash’ has been looked up 1881 times, loved by 1 person, added to 23 lists, commented on 4 times, and has a Scrabble score of 11.