Word of the week: Taxi. What is the origin of the word taxi?

What is the origin of the word ‘taxi’?

Posted on by Celladora

Origin of taxis

Since I mentioned taxis in my last post, it feels only fitting to write about the origin of this word today. I have always been fascinated by etymology – the scientific study of the origin and evolution of words. I love to find out about the weird and wonderful connections that exist in languages. Especially as a history nerd, it is so cool to learn about how a word reflects the time and place of its origin. 

So, for whatever reason, I once started thinking about whether there was a connection between the words ‘taxi’ and ‘tax’. Most languages have their own word for ‘taxes’ but now that I thought about it, the word ‘taxi’ is the same in almost anywhere in the world. Even if you don’t speak the local language, they will always understand what you mean when you ask for a taxi. This ubiquity implies that the word is relatively recent and has a singular origin from where it quickly spread to other countries and languages. 

taxi etymology
Image by: Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

After some digging around, I found out that the original word for taxi was actually ‘taximeter’ (or a ‘taximeter cab’), which literally means a tax by the meter (hey, I was right about the connection with the word ‘tax’!). It’s a combination of the medieval Latin word ‘taxa’ (to tax, charge) and the Latin root for ‘meter’ (a unit of distance). Thus, the first taxis were rental vehicles where you paid (tax) based on the distance (meter) traveled. 

The word was first coined by the German inventor Friedrich W. G. Bruhn in 1891 (‘das Taxameter’), from where it was adopted by the French (‘le taximètre’) and the English (‘taximeter’). The term ‘taxicab’ (a blend of ‘taximeter’ and ‘cabriolet’) can actually be traced back to London in 1907, from where it was borrowed by a guy named Harry Nathaniel Allen of The New York Taxicab Company. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Similar words, similar origins?

Another word that sounds similar to ‘taxi’ and ‘tax’ is ‘taxonomy’. Do these also have similar origins? No, not really. This is a case of similar words having completely different meanings. While ‘taxi’ originates from Latin, the word ‘taxonomy’ has its roots in ancient Greek. It is a combination of the words ‘taxis’ (arrangement, order) and ‘nomos’ (law, distribution), literally meaning the law of arrangement as it refers to the classification of all living things (as in the evolutionary tree of life).

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