hansom

plural hansoms · alternative hanson

1. abbreviationellipsishistoricalEllipsis of Hansom cab.

   I rose accordingly from table, got into a hansom, and drove straight to Jekyll's house.

   1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Dr. Lanyon’s Narrative”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 95

   4 more examples

   "Yes, if you have nothing better to do." A minute later we were both in a hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road.

   1887, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet”, in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward, Lock & Co., part I (Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., […]), chapter III (The Lauriston Gardens Mystery), page 17

   “There the cause of death was soon ascertained ; the victim of this daring outrage had been stabbed to death from ear to ear with a long, sharp instrument, in shape like an antique stiletto, which […] was subsequently found under the cushions of the hansom.[…]”

   1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tremarn Case”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020

   The shooting motor cars, more like spiders in the moon than terrestrial objects, the thundering drays, the jingling hansoms, and little black broughams, made her think of the world she lived in.

   1915, Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out, London: Duckworth & Co., […], →OCLC

   The ghost of Selby stirred in him. His thoughts slipped back to the day when he had stolen from his well-appointed office to a waiting hansom—there had still been a good many hansoms in those days—and driven quickly to the docks.

   1931, Francis Beeding, “6/4”, in Death Walks in Eastrepps

1. A surname originating as a patronymic.