Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An instrument installed in a taxicab to measure distance traveled and waiting time and to compute and indicate the fare.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A commercial name of an instrument for automatically recording and mechanically computing the tax or charge to be made for the use of a hired vehicle in accordance with a determined tariff for such charges. A metallic case incloses a dial, behind which the actuating mechanism is connected to a wheel of the vehicle, whose revolutions it counts and records. If the payment is to be by distance traversed, the reading-dial has figures which are the multiples of the distance at the agreed or legal rate of so many monetary units per mile or per kilometer. The dial therefore reads directly the charge to be made, and no record is made of such time as the wheels are not turning. If the rate is so much per hour of use, the distance-measuring mechanism is disconnected by a lever in the case, and a clock is thrown into gear with another reading-dial, which multiplies the elapsed time by the rate per hour, and both driver and passenger can read clearly the amount due under either system.
Sci. Amer., Oct. 15, 1904, p. 260.
Wiktionary
- n. a device installed in a taxicab that calculates the fare based upon distance travelled and waiting time.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. a meter in a taxi that registers the fare (based on the length of the ride).
WordNet 3.0
- n. a meter in a taxi that registers the fare (based on the length of the ride)
Etymologies
- From French taximètre, from German Taxameter, coined from Medieval Latin taxa (tax, charge), from Proto-Indo-European base *tag- (to touch, to handle). (Wiktionary)
- French taximètre, alteration of taxamètre, from German Taxameter : Medieval Latin taxa, tax (from taxāre, to tax; see tax) + -meter, meter (from Greek metron, measure; see -meter). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“While the older compound word taximeter yielded the shorter taxi in English, that shorter word took a shortcut of its own in China.”
“Ok so if the taximeter says 20$ but the meter says 40, what are you going to do…argue with a foreign cab driver that youre taximeter which is only 85% accurate is showing a different price?”
“The words of the man at the Astor, and still more the episodes of the family friend from Missouri and the taximeter cab, had shown him that this thing was on a different plane from anything that had happened to him before.”
Kindle-licious on Wodehouse’s Psmith: Reality Bites | Spontaneous ∂erivation
“In your capacity as London mayor-elect why don't you invite him along to No 18 for a quiet chat/debate on all this your sofas - along with a couple of London's finest taximeter cabriolet drivers?”
“For example, the taximeter used by the Greeks to measure the distance travelled by the wheels of a carriage employed only pairs of gears or gears and worms to achieve the necessary ratio of movement.”
“In the case of this defence of the Christian conviction I confess that I would as soon begin the argument with one thing as another; I would begin it with a turnip or a taximeter cab.”
“Shirley scrutinized the interior of the machine, but there seemed nothing to distinguish it from the thousands of other piratical craft which pillage the public with the aid of the taximeter clock on the port beam!”
“Towards midnight of September 29th the journalists were seated in an open taximeter cab, in a brilliantly lighted square, which some little time before had been swept of rioters -- rioters from the Berlin police point of view being any one, man, woman, or child, who is, with guilty or innocent intent, it makes no difference, in or near a theatre of disturbance.”
“A taximeter consists of a securely closed and sealed metal box containing a mechanism actuated by a flexible shaft connected with the wheel of the vehicle, in the same manner as the speedometer on a motor car.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary"
“At one time there was much discussion in England as to the desirability of legalizing on cabs the use of a mechanical fare-recorder such as, under the name of taximeter or taxameter, is in general use on the continent of”
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary"
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘taximeter’.
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phrontistery-t
from phrontistery.info
tabacosis, tabanid, tabaret, tabati?re, tabby, tabefaction, tabellary, tabellion, tabernacle, tabernacular, tabescent, tabific and 930 more...
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Rognons of Random Palavery
Another of my random palavery lists for terms and phrases that don't fit into any of my other lists.
priorship, exigeant, refectory, reestablish, capper, reesed, quar, reprune, orificial, reaming-iron, terminist, terminism and 3097 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for taximeter.
hernesheir The nemesis of one's allotted weekend spending money? Dec 2, 2010