cabmann.
/ˈkabmən/, U.S. /ˈkæbmən/ A man whose occupation is driving a taxicab or (formerly) taxi carriage. Also occasionally: a cab driver of either sex. Now chiefly historical, with reference to horse-drawn cabs.
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society > travel > transport > transport or conveyance in a vehicle > transport by vehicles plying for hire > [noun] > driving or hiring of cabs > driver of hired cab
cab driver1825
cabman1828
cabbie1829
duck-shover1898
mini-man1961
1828 Spectator 22 Nov. 329/1 All hackney-coachmen, cabmen, watermen, and turnpike men, are provided with prodigious broods of brats.
1861 G. H. Kingsley in F. Galton Vacation Tourists & Trav. 1860 137 The forester and shepherd know them [sc. the corries] as well as a London cabman does the streets.
1910 F. J. Stimson Pop. Law-making xi. 215 As we all know, there are women cabmen in Paris.
1955 Financial Times 9 Mar. 7/8 RadioCabs is..to organise its frequencies into areas so that as a taxi crosses from one region to another the cabman can switch to the local frequency.
2013 P. K. Andersson Street Life in Late Victorian London iv. 121 Strikes among cabmen seem to have been a common occurrence.
Compounds
cabmen's shelter n. (also cabman's shelter) a small wooden hut serving as a shelter or cafe for cab drivers; cf. cab shelter n. at cab n.2 Compounds 2.Introduced in the second half of the 19th cent., most cabmen's shelters were positioned on the public highway owing to laws forbidding cabmen to leave their vehicles unattended, and were no larger in size than a horse and carriage. Some surviving shelters (mostly in London) remain open exclusively for use by licensed taxi drivers.
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1862 Manch. Courier 15 Mar. 9/2 A very neat and comfortable structure..called ‘St. Saviour's Cabmen's Shelter’... The shelter is a neat building of wood, about 9 feet square, fitted inside with benches running round three sides.
1875 Dundee Courier & Argos 8 Feb. The first London cabmen's shelter was opened at St. John's Wood on Saturday by the Hon. Arthur Kinnaird.
1922 J. Joyce Ulysses xvi. [Eumaeus] 577 Mr. Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman's shelter, an unpretentious wooden structure.
2017 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 4 July a1 Mr. Walsh..was having a cup of tea with fellow cabdrivers outside a small green wooden hut near Buckingham Palace, one of 13 remaining ‘cabmen's shelters’ dating from the days when cabs were still horse-drawn coaches.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2019; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1828