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Origin and history of dray

dray(n.)

late-14c., draie, "strong wheeled or wheel-less cart," from Old English dræge or some other noun derivative from dragan "to draw" and originally meaning a cart without wheels that has to be "dragged" (compare Old Norse draga "timber dragged behind a horse;" Middle Low German drage, Middle High German trage "a litter"); see drag (v.). Modern sense of "low, strong cart with stout wheels and without sides, used for carrying heavy loads" is from 1580s.

also from 14c.

Entries linking to dray

drag(v.)

late 14c., draggen, "to draw a grapnel along the bottom of a river, lake, etc., in search of something;" late 15c., "to draw away by force, pull haul," from Old Norse draga, or a dialectal variant of Old English dragan "to draw," both from Proto-Germanic *draganan "to draw, pull," perhaps from a PIE *dhregh- "to draw, drag on the ground" (source also of Sanskrit dhrajati "pulls, slides in," Russian drogi "wagon," doroga "way;" connection to Latin trahere "to draw" is possible but problematic).

Meaning "draw (feet, tails, etc.) along slowly" is from 1580s; intransitive sense of "move heavily or slowly, hang with its weight while moving or being moved" is by 1660s. Meaning "to take a puff" (of a cigarette, etc.) is from 1914. Related: Dragged; dragging. Drag-out "violent fight" is from c. 1859. To drag (one's) feet (1946 in the figurative sense "delay deliberately") supposedly is from logging, from a lazy way to use a two-man saw.

drayage(n.)

1791, "fee for conveyance by dray," from dray + -age. Later also simply "conveyance by dray."

drayman(n.)

"man who drives and manages a dray," 1580s, from dray + man (n.).

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    Trends of dray

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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    late 13c., "place where streets or walls meet;" early 14c., "intersection of any two converging lines or surfaces; an angle," from Anglo-French cornere (Old French corner, corniere), from Old French corne "horn; corner," from Vulgar Latin *corna, from Latin cornua, plural of corn
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    1708, "vaulted building; arched roof or ceiling," from Latin camera "a vault, vaulted room" (source also of Italian camera, Spanish camara, French chambre), from Greek kamara "vaulted chamber, anything with an arched cover," which is of uncertain origin. A doublet of chamber. Old
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