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.

---

common carrier British  

noun

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

---

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.

---

Other Word Forms

• common carriage noun
• common-carrier adjective

Example Sentences

But the railway maintains that it was upholding its “common carrier” obligations in meeting the ask of Tesoro, now the Marathon oil refinery.

From Seattle Times

I begged to differ, noting that your policy covers trip delays caused by common carriers “including, but not limited to, scheduled departure and return times and actual departure and return times.”

From New York Times

And the big telecommunications corporations are designated “common carriers” with obligations to allow access to their networks to other companies.

From New York Times

This last point is supposed to prove that the government can classify platforms as “common carriers,” just like railroads or phone providers, and demand that they not discriminate.

From Washington Post

His opinion declared that some technology firms fit into the Anglo-American tradition of “common carriers,” like phone companies and the telegraph, whose right to exclude people and ideas may be regulated by the government.

From Washington Post