coach-and-four

[ kohch-uhn-fawr, -fohr ]

noun

1. a coach together with the four horses by which it is drawn.

Word History and Origins

Origin of coach-and-four¹

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

It is a social engineering outfit masquerading as a tech firm, and it appears to regard social responsibility as an outdated piece of apparatus, a wooden coach-and-four in an age of tarmac.

From The Guardian

It was after a visit to some such mansion that Daniel Webster asked, "Did those old fellows go to bed in a coach-and-four?"

From Project Gutenberg

Asking who they were, she was informed that the party consisted of two gentlemen, who had travelled there in a coach-and-four, attended by a livery servant, evidently a foreigner.

From Project Gutenberg

There now, whilst she’s eating that cabbage a coach-and-four might drive over her——’ ‘Never mind, never mind; just run down and fetch her up quick.’

From Project Gutenberg

The end had come; the clock had struck twelve, and her fineries were rags, her coach-and-four was a pumpkin and mice.

From Project Gutenberg