chauffeur
/ˈʃəʊfə
/ /ʃəʊˈfəː /noun
A person employed to drive a private or hired car: a chauffeur-driven limousine...
- From there he became a chauffeur for a private estate, until his employer suffered a slump in fortune.
- It gave him his luxury apartment in Berlin, his chauffeur, bodyguard and private barber.
- Chan plays a cab driver who is hired as a chauffeur to the head of a secret government spy unit.
verb [with object]
Drive (a car or a passenger in a car), typically as part of one’s job: she insisted on being chauffeured around...
- He tells parents who spend hours chauffeuring teenagers to drive slowly and to take the scenic route when time permits.
- Whatever a hackney carriage may be classed as, it is still a car that carries a limited number of passengers who are paying for the privilege of being chauffeured from door to door.
- On Thursday, you and I learn that we can't drive to school anymore, but we have to be chauffeured by the Secret Service.
Origin
Late 19th century (in the general sense 'motorist'): from French, literally 'stoker' (by association with steam engines), from chauffer 'to heat'.
Early cars could be steam-driven rather than have petrol engines, which explains why this French word literally means ‘stoker’ from chauffer ‘to heat’.
Rhymes
- what goes around comes around
- what if ——?
- what is he (or she etc.) like?
- what is more
- what makes someone tick
- what matter?
- what next
- what next (or whatever next)
- whatnot
- what of it?
- what of ——?
- what planet are you on?
- what possessed you?
- what price ——?
- what's ado
- what's (all) this in aid of?
- what say ——?
- what say —— ?
- what's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh (or blood)
- what's eating you (or him or her)?
- whatserface
- whatsername
- whatsherface
- whatshername
- whatshisface