The German inventor Friedrich Wilhelm Gustav Bruhn came up with a device, in 1891, that measured the distance of a short trip in a carriage. It took only 8 years for Gottlieb Daimler, another German inventor, to install the device — a taximeter — in the Daimler Victoria, which was the world’s first real taxicab (it had both a meter and an engine).
Taximeters weren’t only used in motorcars, and the London Daily News noted in 1898: “One of the new Berlin taximeters, attached to a London hansom cab, on which it has been in operation for the past six months in an experimental way, was shown.” But horsedrawn coaches-for-hire were already known as “hansom cabs” (and some other terms), so they weren’t immediately renamed.
It wasn’t clear at first that “taxi” was going to be the term of choice. In 1907 the Daily Chronicle pointed out that “Every journalist..has his idea of what the vehicle should be called. It has been described as the (1) taxi, (2) motor-cab, (3) taxi-cab, (4) taximo,..(7) taximeter-cab.” But opinion seemed to coalesce pretty soon after that, it was just the following year that this appeared in the Daily Chronicle: “Within the past few months the ‘taxi’ has been the name given to the motor-cab.”
But remember, it was still just 1908. That same year, back in the Daily News: “Many ladies..now take a ‘taxy’ regularly for the morning’s shopping. There are about 350 horsed ‘taxies’ on the road.”
The word “taxi” in this case is just an abbreviation of ‘taximeter”, which itself is a combination of some derivation of the Latin word “taxa”, which means a tax or fee, and “meter.” “Taxa” is the source of the English word “tax” as well as “taxi,” but although taxes have been around as long as people have used money (and there’s evidence that taxes are the reason why money was invented in the first place), the word “tax” didn’t appear until the 1300s. Moreover, when it first appeared it didn’t have to do with payments; it meant “task.” It’s still used in something like that sense when some tiring or difficult activity is described as “taxing.”
You might take a taxicab if walking to your destination seems too taxing. And since you’re just sitting there idly during your ride, you find that although you know about “taxi,” the “cab” part is bothering you. And well it should, because “cab” comes from “cabriolet,” a French word for a light, two-wheeled passenger carriage. Horse-drawn cabriolets had retractible roofs made of canvas, which is why cars with convertible tops have sometimes been called “cabriolets” (especially when you want to charge more for them). But the original “cabriolets” tended to be a pretty bouncy ride — which reminded people of goats jumping around — which is where the word “cabriolet” come from: a Latin word for goat. So you can be forgiven if the cost of a taxi ride really gets your goat; it makes perfect sense.
