jarvey, n. colloq.
(ˈdʒɑːvɪ)
Also jarvy, jarvie.
[By-form of Jarvis or Jervis, personal name.]
1. A hackney-coachman. Now frequently applied to the driver of an Irish car.
| [1796 Grose Dict. Vulg. T., Jarvis, a hackney coachman. 1812 J. H. Vaux Flash Dict., Jervis's upper benjamin, a box, or coachman's great coat.] 1820 Blackw. Mag. VI. 391 To see him through the jar of jarvies pushing. 1862 Sala Accepted Addr. 184, I seek in vain for the old jarvey with his many-caped Benjamin. 1882 W. Ballantine Exper. ii. 19 The driver [of a hackney-coach] was called a jarvey, a compliment paid to the class in consequence of one of them named Jarvis having been hanged. |
† 2. A hackney-coach. Obs.
| 1819 Blackw. Mag. V. 639/2 He had a large loaf stuck upon the pole of the Jarvie in which he travelled. 1841 Motley Corr. (1889) I. iv. 76 The droskies, the most awkward and inconvenient of all jarvies. 1868 H. C. R. Johnson Argent. Alps 163 A most wonderful and antique coach, something like an enormous ghost of one of the London jarveys of fifty years ago. |
Hence ˈjarvey v. intr., to act the jarvey, to drive a carriage.
| 1826 Sporting Mag. XIX. 18 No one can pronounce that person a ‘good whip’ who has only been seen jarveying along a turnpike level road. |