coachman
(ˈkəʊtʃmən)
[f. coach n. + man.]
1. a. The man who drives a coach.
| 1579 Gosson Sch. Abuse (Arb.) 33 Caligula..loued Prasinus the Cochman. 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. xxii. (Arb.) 266 Comming to salute the Queene..he said to her Cochman, stay thy cart good fellow, stay thy cart, that I may speake to the Queene. a 1649 Drummond of Hawthornden Skiamachia Wks. 197 A coach-man of a lord of parliament. 1711 Swift Lett. (1767) III. 161 The dean..sent me his chariot, which has cost me two shillings to the coachman. 1828 Southey Ep. Allan Cunningham, With coachmen's quarrels, and with footmen's shouts. 1878 Seeley Stein III. 498 Calling him ‘a good horse, but a bad coachman’. |
† b. poet. A charioteer. Obs.
| 1583 Stanyhurst æneis ii. (Arb.) 59 Coachmen of old of Achilles. c 1611 Chapman Iliad xiii. 866 His coachman led them to his lord. |
c. techn. The driver of a fire-engine.
| 1883 Pall Mall G. 23 Oct. 4/2 In securing a quick start a great responsibility rests upon the ‘coachman’. |
d. An Australian bird, Pachycephala rufiventris, also called the coach-whip bird; cf. flying coachman.
| [1822 Jrnl. Excursion Blue Mountains 10 Oct. in B. Field Geogr. Mem N.S. Wales (1825) 440 Some [notes] are harsh and vulgar, like those of the parrot-kind, the cockatoo, the coachman's whip-bird.] 1827 P. Cunningham N.S.W. II. 158 Our native coachman..whistling and cracking out his whiplike notes as he hops sprucely from branch to branch. 1888 Jas. Thomas in Austral. Poets 1788–1888 552 While the crested coachman bird Midst the underwood is heard. 1918 J. A. Leach Austral. Bird Bk. (ed. 4) 151 Rufous-breasted Whistler (Thickhead), Little Thrush, Ring Coachman, Coachwhip-Bird. |
2. Angling. A kind of artificial fly.
| 1839 in T. C. Hofland Angler's Manual. 1852 D. P. Blaine Encycl. Rural Sports 1162 A mothlike artificial representation known in [Herefordshire] as Harding's or the coachman's from a stage coach driver of that name who was an excellent fly fisher. 1867 F. Francis Angling vi. (1880) 243 The Coachman..is one of the best evening and night flies. |
Hence ˈcoachmanlike a., ˈcoachmanhood.
| 1826 Miss Mitford Village Ser. ii. (1863) 320 A most magnificent coachmanlike wig. 1859 Sala Tw. round Clock (1861) 206 The mighty plush galligaskins of coachmanhood. |