coach

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European*pekʷ-
2. Proto-Indo-European*pékʷeti
3. Proto-Italic*kʷekʷō
4. Latin*quoquō
5. Latincoquō
6. Late Latincoquus
7. Proto-West Germanic*kok
8. Old High Germanchoch
9. Middle High Germankoch
10. GermanKoch
11. HungarianKoch
12. HungarianKocs
13. Hungariankocsi
14. GermanKutsche
15. Middle Frenchcoche
16. English todaycoach

Borrowed from Middle French coche, from German Kutsche, from Hungarian kocsi. According to historians, the coach was named after the small Hungarian town of Kocs, which made a livelihood from cart building and transport between Vienna and Budapest. The meaning “instructor/trainer” is from Oxford University slang (c. 1830) for a “tutor” who “carries” one through an exam; the athletic sense is from 1861.

Words from the same roots