CARRIAGE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CARRIAGEAuthored

The Law Mind • 1022 words

Definition

CARRIAGE carries two distinct legal meanings that must be kept separate in research contexts.

1. Vehicle for conveyance of persons. A wheeled vehicle designed primarily for transporting people, drawn by horses or other draught animals over ordinary streets and highways. The historical legal definition consistently excluded vehicles running exclusively on railroad or street railway tracks — that is, a carriage is a road vehicle, not a rail vehicle. It also excluded vehicles used primarily for transporting merchandise or goods in trade; the dominant conception was a vehicle for personal transportation, whether for pleasure or business travel.

2. The act of transportation or conveyance. The act of carrying persons or goods from one place to another, especially in the commercial and contractual sense. In this sense, carriage describes the service provided by a carrier — the physical movement of cargo or passengers under a contract of carriage. This meaning underpins modern transportation law, maritime law, and the law of common carriers, and it survives robustly in contemporary legal usage (e.g., "contract of carriage," "bill of lading as contract of carriage").

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A mostly four-wheeled lighter vehicle designed to transport people, generally horse-drawn; also, the act of conveying; also, one's bearing or posture.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): That which carries or conveys — including a wheeled vehicle, the act of transporting, and the price of carrying. Webster's also records an archaic sense meaning burden or baggage.

Editorial note: The common and legal meanings overlap substantially for the vehicle sense, but the legal definition is narrower and more technical: courts historically drew hard lines excluding rail cars and freight vehicles that ordinary speakers might still call "carriages." The second legal meaning — carriage as a commercial act or service — has largely faded from everyday speech while remaining fully alive in legal and commercial documents.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Contract of carriage: The agreement between a carrier and a shipper or passenger governing the terms of transportation. In maritime and commercial law, this is a foundational concept distinct from the physical vehicle.

Common carriage: Transportation services offered to the general public, giving rise to heightened legal duties. Distinguished from private carriage, where transportation is arranged on individual terms.

Carriage of goods by sea: A specialized body of law governing maritime freight transport, codified in instruments such as the Hague Rules and their successors. This usage inherits the second definitional meaning (the act) rather than the first (the vehicle).

Why It Matters in Research

The vehicle definition is largely a historical artifact. Modern researchers encountering "carriage" in statutory or case law from the nineteenth century must determine which meaning controls: courts deciding liability for personal injury, licensing disputes, or tax assessments often turned on whether a vehicle qualified as a carriage in the first sense. The exclusion of railroad cars was contested and litigated; do not assume the exclusion is self-evident in every jurisdiction or period.

The act-of-carriage meaning, by contrast, is forward-looking and remains live. Bills of lading, charter parties, passenger tickets, and freight contracts all operate within a law of carriage that traces to this second definition. When researching transportation contracts, admiralty documents, or carrier liability, the vehicle meaning is irrelevant — the operative concept is the service or obligation of carriage.

Researchers should also note that Bouvier's directs readers to AUTOMOBILE, signaling how rapidly the horse-drawn vehicle definition became obsolete after the turn of the twentieth century. Statutes and cases that once used "carriage" in the vehicle sense were progressively reinterpreted or superseded as motor vehicles displaced horse-drawn transport. A statute using "carriage" passed in 1880 may have been construed to include automobiles by 1920, or it may not — context and jurisdiction determine the outcome.

The encyclopedia connection to Bills of Lading is significant: a bill of lading functions simultaneously as a receipt for goods, a document of title, and a contract of carriage. Researchers tracing carrier obligations should follow that thread.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries largely agree on the vehicle definition: Black's (both editions) and Anderson's converge on the horse-drawn road vehicle, the exclusion of railroad cars, and the exclusion of freight vehicles. Anderson's adds the useful observation that the ordinary mind does not associate the word with a railroad or street railway car — indicating courts were tracking lay understanding as a baseline.

Black's first edition and the second edition both truncate their entries mid-sentence in the source material available, suggesting the full entries addressed the act-of-carriage meaning as well, but that portion is not preserved in the excerpts here. Bouvier's offers no independent analysis, directing readers to AUTOMOBILE instead — a revealing editorial choice that dates the entry and confirms how quickly the horse-drawn vehicle definition became legally secondary.

None of the historical dictionaries give significant independent treatment to the contract-of-carriage meaning, which by the late nineteenth century was already well developed in commercial and admiralty practice. This is a gap: researchers relying solely on these dictionary sources for the law of carrier obligations will find them inadequate and should turn to treatises on common carriers and maritime law.

Jurisdictional Note

The vehicle definition was most actively litigated in American state courts in the latter half of the nineteenth century, with variation in how broadly or narrowly courts drew the line between carriages and other conveyances for purposes of licensing, taxation, and liability. English courts developed the act-of-carriage meaning more systematically in commercial and admiralty law. Modern researchers in U.S. federal law will encounter "carriage" almost exclusively in the transportation-contract sense, particularly in admiralty and aviation contexts.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Bills of Lading — Document of Title, Receipt, and Contract of Carriage (The Law Mind Military, Veterans & Admiralty Law Encyclopedia)

CARRIAGEmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

A vehicle used for the transportation of persons either for pleasure or business, and drawn by horses or other draught animals over the ordinary streets and highways of the country; not including cars used exclusively upon railroads or street railroads expressly constructed for the use of such cars. 63 Wis. 97, 23 N. W. Rep. 425; 8 Kan. 84; 47 N. Y. 122; 46 N. H. 523; 5 Q. B. Div. 176. The act of carrying, or a contract for trans- portation of persons or goods. The contract of carriage is a contract for the conveyance of property, persons, or mes- sages from one place to another. Civil Code Cal. § 2085; Civil Code Dak. § 1208. CARRICLE, or CARRACLE. A ship of great burden.

CARRIAGEcrossref

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

See AUTOMOBILE.

CARRIAGEmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

1. The act of carrying: transportation, conveyance; also, that which carries or conveys. To the ordinary mind, does not convey the idea of a railroad or street railway car, nor of a wheeled vehicle for the transportation of merchandise or products used in ordinary business. The idea is a vehicle for the transportation of persons for pleasure or business, drawn by horses or other draught animals over the ordinary streets and highways of the country, and not that of a "car" used upon a railroad or street railway expressly constructed therefor. As yet, in this country, the vehicles used for transporting passengers on railroads and street railways are generally called cars, occasionally coaches; seldom, if ever, carriages. The definition given by the older lexicographers of "carriage" was very general and indefinite, while that given in our own times is more in consonance with the restricted meaning of the word 1 [Johnson v. Hudson River R. Co., 6 Duer, 646 (1857). • Dexter v. McCready, 54 Conn. 172 (1886), Park, C. J. Read v. Morse, 34 Wis. 318 (1874), Lyon, J. See also 100 U. S. 195; 1 Flip. 13. [2 Pars. Contr. 87; 20 N. Y. 69. Seamans v. Loring, 1 Mas. 142 (1816), Story, J. • [Thwing v. Great West. Ins. Co., 103 Mass. 406-7 (1869), cases, Gray, J. Macy v. Whaling Ins. Co., 9 Metc. 366 (1845); 113 U. S. 49. tracts as suit himself.4 A private carrier, like an ordinary bailee for hire, is only liable for the injury or loss of the goods intrusted to him when it results from the failure of himself or his servant to exercise ordinary care. He is not bound to carry for any person unless he enters into a special agreement to do so. He is not an insurer, but must use care and skill. The bailor must prove negligence. A common carrier is bound to carry for all who offer such goods as he is accustomed to carry, and who tender reasonable compensation for carrying them. If he refuses to perform his obligation in this respect he may be held liable in damages. Common carriers are classified as carriers of goods or merchandise, and as carriers of passengers. Their office is quasi public: the public have an interest in the faithful discharge of the duties. Their property, being devoted to a public use, may be regulated by the legislature.7 I. Common Carrier of Goods or Merchandise. To him "common carrier" and "carrier" are applied by way of pre-eminence. His relation, at common law, is that of insurer against all losses except such as result from an act of God or of the public enemy. As against any other cause of loss, the law conclu1 [Cream City R. Co. v. Chicago, &c. R. Co., 63 Wis. 97 (1885), Taylor, J. 2 Dwight v. Brewster, 1 Pick. 53 (1882), Parker, C. J. 3 Allen v. Sackrider, 37 N. Y. 342 (1867), Parker, J. See also 3 Wend. 161; Story, Contr. § 752, α. 4 Piedmont Manuf. Co. v. Columbia, &c. R. Co., 19 S. C. 364 (1883), Simpson, C. J. Varble v. Bigley, 14 Bush, 702-6 (1879), cases. The Margaret, 94 U. S. 497 (1876), cases. See also 25 Am. Law Reg. 451-61 (1886), cases. See Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 130 (1876). See generally 1 Sm. L. Cas. 406-41, cases.

CARRIAGEn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

That which is carried; burden; baggage. [Obs.] David left his carriage in the hand of the keeper of the carriage. 1. Sam. xvii. 22. And after those days we took up our carriages and went up to Jerusalem. Acts. xxi. 15. The act of carrying, transporting, or conveying. Nine days employed in carriage. Chapman. The price or expense of carrying. That which carries of conveys, as: (a) A wheeled vehicle for persons, esp. one designed for elegance and comfort. (b) A wheeled vehicle carrying a fixed burden, as a gun carriage. (c) A part of a machine which moves and carries of supports some other moving object or part. (d) A frame or cage in which something is carried or supported; as, a bell carriage. The manner of carrying one's self; behavior; bearing; deportment; personal manners. His gallant carriage all the rest did grace. Stirling. The act or manner of conducting measures or projects; management. The passage and whole carriage of this action. Shak. Carriage horse, a horse kept for drawing a carriage.  -- Carriage porch (Arch.), a canopy or roofed pavilion covering the driveway at the entrance to any building. It is intended as a shelter for those who alight from vehicles at the door; -- sometimes erroneously called in the United States porte-cochère.

carriagenoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

The act of conveying; carrying. | A means of conveyance. | A (mostly four-wheeled) lighter vehicle chiefly designed to transport people, generally drawn by horse power. | Ellipsis of railway carriage (“a passenger railroad car, or any railroad car”). | The manner or posture in which one holds or positions a body part, such as one's arm or head. | A manner of walking and moving in general; how one carries oneself, bearing, gait. | One's behavior, or way of conducting oneself towards others. | The part of a typewriter supporting the paper. | A shopping cart. | A stroller; a baby carriage. | The charge made for conveying (especially in the phrases carriage forward, when the charge is to be paid by the receiver, and Carriage Paid To). | That which is carried, baggage.

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