sedan chair

plural sedan chairs · alternative sedan-chair

1. historicalAn open or enclosed chair raised on poles and carried by people or animals, used as a mode of transport.First known use 1750

   3 more examples

   In Rio de Janeiro the gentry keep their chaises, which are drawn by mules; the ladies however use a sedan chair, boarded before and behind, with curtains on each side, which is carried by two negroes on a pole connected with the top of the chair, by two rods, coming from under its bottom, one on each side, and resting to the top.

   1790, George William Anderson, A Collection of Voyages round the World, Vol. I, p. 25

   Mr. G.'s published letters have widely diffused his favorite position, that "China is open." He still maintains this position, though others have risen to controvert it. To me it seems that, whether or not it is open to the settlement of missionaries is a matter to be decided only by experiment; to make which, there are not more than himself and three other missionaries sufficiently versed in the language... The worst that would probably happen to a proper man, making the trial, would be, to be placed in a sedan chair, and transmitted to Macao... It is a great mercy that China should be shut, at present, to Christian teachers. Were it otherwise, Protestants are without persons to send; while Popish priests abound in the East, and would instantly enter in great numbers, making the field worse for us, if possible, than now.

   1839, Howard Malcom, Travels in South-Eastern Asia..., Vol I, p. 166

   The National Code states: "Except the spouses and daughters of royal families, and the mothers, wives, daughters, and daughters-in-law of chief officials [tangsanggwan], as well as the brides of officials [ŭmgwan] who are appointed without taking state civil service examinations, no one is allowed to ride in a sedan chair with a canopy [okgyoja], and the violators of this statute shall be punished by eighty strokes of beating with a heavy stick..." However, the womenfolk of the yamen clerks in the Honam region alone all ride in sedan chairs with canopies, letting down colorful bead screens and being escorted by their servants, who shout to make a way ahead... As the decline of old families and famous clans becomes serious day by day, the sedan chairs that they use are so worn out that they are bound by ropes of straw; the destroyed canopy is replaced by a mat, the drapery by a dress, and the bead screen by a cut-off fish trap. They place the sedan chair on the back of a cow... These are the things we hear about nowadays.

   2010, Jeong Yak-yong, translated by Choi Byong-hyon, Admonitions on Governing the People, page 479

   Synonyms: litter

2. gamesAn equivalent mode of transport created by two people grasping each other's forearms, making a seat for the rider.First known use 19th cent.

   Another way of carrying a patient is upon what is known among school-boys as a ‘sedan-chair’, each bearer grasping his own fore-arm and that of his fellow about its middle... and the patient grasping the bearers' necks.

   1869, Cassell's Household Guide, volume I, page 72