common carrier

American  

noun

1. Transportation. (in federal regulatory and other legal usage) a carrier offering its services at published rates to all persons for interstate transportation.

2. a public service or public utility company, as a telephone or telegraph company, engaged in the transmitting of messages for the public.

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common carrier British  

noun

1. a person or firm engaged in the business of transporting goods or passengers

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common carrier Cultural  

1. A company or individual providing public transportation on a regular basis in return for a fee that is uniformly charged to all users.

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Other Word Forms

• common carriage noun
• common-carrier adjective

Example Sentences

That if you want your voice heard, Twitter is really the only game in town, and so it has become a common carrier.

From Slate • Sep. 27, 2022

That was the only thing Jeanine had consumed, and it was a common carrier of Cronobacter.

From New York Times • Sep. 6, 2022

We cannot stress this enough: No, an Ohio judge did not declare Google a common carrier this week.

From Washington Post • May 26, 2022

He then ran through an extended analogy in which Verizon listened to every phone call and cut off any pro-LGBT conversation, ignoring interjections that Twitter simply isn’t a common carrier and the comparison doesn’t apply.

From The Verge • May 13, 2022

Since the river is a common carrier, the drives of a number of logging companies may float into the mill pond together.

From Handwork in Wood by Noyes, William