Alternative forms

arba, aroba

Etymology

From Ottoman Turkish عربه (modern Turkish araba).

Pronunciation

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Noun

araba (plural arabas)

(historical) A horse-drawn carriage once used for transportation in pre-modern Turkey.
- 1836, Julia Pardoe, City of the Sultan; and Domestic Manners of the Turks:
  No one but a native of the luxurious East could ever have invented an araba, with its comfortable cushions, and its gaily painted roof, and gilded pillars. The prettiest are those of brown and gold, with rose-coloured draperies, through which the breeze flutters to your cheek as blandly as though it loved the tint that reminded it of the roses of the past season amid which it had wandered."
- 1845, William Makepeace Thackeray, Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo:
  I found the examination of these antiquities much less pleasant than to look at the many troops of children assembled on the plain to play; and to watch them as they were dragged about in little queer arobas, or painted carriages, which are there kept for hire.
- 1898, Alexander William Kinglake, Eothen:
  There is, however, such a thing as an “araba,” a vehicle drawn by oxen, in which the wives of a rich man are sometimes dragged four or five miles over the grass by way of recreation. The carriage is rudely framed, but you recognise in the simple grandeur of its design a likeness to things majestic; in short, if your carpenter’s son were to make a “Lord Mayor’s coach” for little Amy, he would build a carriage very much in the style of a Turkish araba.
- 1917, W.J. Childs, Across Asia Minor on Foot:
  Whenever I mounted the araba, he would whip his horses to a sharp trot or canter for half a mile, and then at a word stop for me to get out.

Translations

carriage

See also

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Pronunciation

Noun

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