The word ‘taxi’ is derived as a shortened form of two other words: ‘taximeter’ and ‘cabriolet’. Obviously, the derivative is ‘taxicab’, which was shortened to ‘taxi’. It is interesting to note that the term ‘taximeter’ was first used in 1891 to indicate a device used to calculate fares and distances; in Latin, ‘taxa’ meant a charge or encumbrance. ‘Cabriolet’ was used to refer to a horse-drawn carriage where the carriage driver occupied a position at the rear.

However, around the same time, Germany adopted the name taxameter for a similar device, going back to the Greek term ‘taxe’, which also meant charge or fee. ‘Taxe a meter’, which meant “pay according to the meter”, was approved for official use in French by Cabriolet owners and shortened to ‘taxi’ from ‘taxe’. The British soon followed its use.

The use of the term ‘taxis’ in ancient Greek denoted ‘movement in response to a stimulus’ or a type of innate behavioral response of an organism to the presence of light or food. Various forms of ‘taxis’ include tropism and kinesis, both of which indicate responses with or without change of direction.

Difference between ‘taxi’ and ‘cab’

In general, both are transport vehicles; ‘taxi’ seems to be an older usage derived from ‘cabriolet’, which meant a horse-drawn carriage for public hire, like the saloon or cabriolet. When these were upgraded as motorized vehicles with meters (taximeters) they began to be called taxis.

To further delineate, in the UK, for example, a taxi is often a hire vehicle parked on the side of the road, while a taxi often refers to a vehicle that is pre-hired or booked in advance for travel. .

connotations

‘Taxi’ also has different connotations of movement such as in a plane rolling or slowly cruising. This was a colloquial term first used in the early 20th century for a small airliner that moved slowly over the ground before picking up speed for takeoff. An interesting slang use of ‘taxi’ in American usage indicates a jail sentence of five to fifteen years or a relatively small prison sentence as an analog reference to a short cab ride.

In many local languages, taxi is often referred to with many other words referring to transportation vehicles, whether manual or motorized: rickshaw derived from the Japanese ‘jin rickshaw’, a hand-drawn carriage, tuk-tuk, or auto rickshaw , a motorized taxi, tricycle and boda boda. At the height of the racist movement in the United States, ‘jitney’ cab was the term used to refer to unlicensed or illegal taxis and was dubbed mainly in African-American areas where legal taxis refused to run.

Nowadays, we know that a taxi means a cab, a black cab, a yellow cab, a cab, taxi buses and even limousines; it simply means a rental vehicle.