calash

American  

[kuh-lash] / kəˈlæʃ /

noun

1. Also a light vehicle pulled by one or two horses, seating two to four passengers, and having two or four wheels, a seat for a driver on a splashboard, and sometimes a folding top.

2. a folding top of a carriage.

3. calèche.

4. a bonnet that folds back like the top of a calash, worn by women in the 18th century.

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calash British  

/ kəˈlæʃ /

noun

1. a horse-drawn carriage with low wheels and a folding top

2. the folding top of such a carriage

3. a woman's folding hooped hood worn in the 18th century

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Etymology

Origin of calash

1660–70; < French calèche < German Kalesche < Czech kolesa carriage, literally, wheels; see wheel

Example Sentences

She was clothed, her dress soaked from the water in which she had sunk herself; she wore a calash upon her head.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

And suddenly he realized that it was a man, despite the full skirts and flutterings of capes and calash.

From The Story of Old Fort Loudon by Murfree, Mary Noailles

Four horses drawing a small calash whose wheels were covered with rubber glided across the Griess as noiselessly as a spectral equipage.

From On the Cross A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau by Hillern, Wilhelmine von

An ancient calash stood in the farthest corner, its leathern portions so gnawed away by the rats that it had wasted into the mere skeleton of a carriage.

From At the Ghost Hour The House of the Unbelieving Thomas by Heyse, Paul

The first was an ordinary, four-seated calash, with a torn leather covering, and a broken spring under the box, temporarily mended with ropes.

From The Romance of the Canoness A Life-History by Heyse, Paul