handbarrow

plural handbarrows

1. A frame, supported by poles, used for carrying things; similar to a litter or stretcher.

   Here they went with a kind of Hand-Barrow, and lay’d the Dead Bodies on it, and carry’d them out to the Carts;

   1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, page 105

   2 more examples

   […] they framed a thing like a hand barrow and carryed this selfe-helpelesse person on their bare shoulders twelve miles to his residence:

   1634, William Wood, chapter 7, in New Englands Prospects, section 2, pages 71-72

   “I am to have it [my harp] to-morrow; but how do you think it is to be conveyed? Not by a waggon or cart;—Oh! no, nothing of that kind could be hired in the village. I might as well have asked for porters and a hand-barrow.”

   1814, Jane Austen, chapter 6, in Mansfield Park, volume 1, page 119

2. Any wheeled cart or box propelled by hand.

   The next conveyance (which, indeed, is the most general) is the costermonger’s hand-barrow. These are very light in their make, with springs terminating at the axle.

   1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1, page 27

   1 more example

   She mentioned once that the car in which they were riding had been bought with the proceeds of her last novel. ‘With the proceeds of my last novel,’ said Henry [James] meditatively, ‘I purchased a small go-cart, or hand-barrow, on which my guests’ luggage is wheeled from the station to my house […]’

   1947, Percy Lubbock, chapter 5, in Portrait of Edith Wharton, page 69

   Synonyms: handcart