Cape cart, noun phrase

Origin:
South African Dutch, DutchShow more Calque formed on South African Dutch kapkar, from Dutch kap hood (mistaken for Kaap Cape) + kar cart.
A two-wheeled hooded carriage, drawn by between two and eight horses or mules. Also attributive.
1832 Graham’s Town Jrnl 16 Feb. 29For Sale, an excellent Cape Cart, on springs with a set of four horse Harness.
1862 Lady Duff-Gordon Lett. from Cape (1925) 93Nothing but a Cape cart, Cape horses, and a Hottentot driver, above all, could have accomplished it.
1873 F. Boyle To Cape for Diamonds 48The Cape cart holds three persons besides the driver. It runs on two wheels, with a light wooden body, like our English tax-cart. A canvas awning, lined with green baize, is supported on iron stanchions.
1895 A.B. Balfour 1200 Miles in Waggon 11A Cape Cart..is a most fascinating kind of vehicle on two wheels, holding four persons, all facing the horses, the whole being covered with one large hood.
1900 M. Marquard Lett. from Boer Parsonage (1967) 131Father’s pass was: ‘This to allow the Rev. Marquard to return to his clerical duties. One kaffir boy, 2 horses and one cape cart.’
1920 R. Juta Tavern 262Driving in by Cape-cart (a light two-wheeled vehicle, introduced by the Huguenots, and reminiscent of the farm carts of Normandy).
1937 C.R. Prance Tante Rebella’s Saga 152Quagga whose foals might be ridden down, picked up and suckled on a donkey-mare for sale to a Rand Magnate, for a Cape-cart team.
1951 L.G. Green Grow Lovely 41This grim, inevitable symbol of justice (sc. portable gallows) had followed by ox-waggon the gay Cape cart procession of judge and advocate through the countryside.
1969 J.R. Grindley Riches of Sea 68A few Malay fish hawkers with Cape carts survive. They still use the strange bleating call of the fish horn to advertise their wares.
1972 Evening Post 19 Feb. 13An old Dutch Cape Cart, which has been in the bridegroom’s family for more than 150 years, was used in place of a bridal car.
1989 Weekend Argus 25 Nov. (Suppl.) 2The 18c stamp features the Cape cart, a typical South African vehicle; the 30c stamp the jubilee spider, which resembles the English surrey.
1989 J. Crwys-Williams S. Afr. Despatches 193He bought the correspondent’s standard equipment: a horse, a Cape cart drawn by mules, clothes, camera, bedding, and a servant.
1991 Best of S. Afr. Short Stories (Reader’s Digest Assoc.) 179Two-wheeled, hooded carts were described at the Cape in 1829, and were probably in use well before that date. To distinguish the hooded cart from the hoodless varieties, it was called a kapkar — a ‘cart with a hood’. Faulty translation by English-speakers soon rendered this as ‘Cape cart’ and towards the end of the 19th century the term had become so well established that it was used even by cart-makers.
A two-wheeled hooded carriage, drawn by between two and eight horses or mules. Also attributive.
Derivatives:
Hence (nonce) Cape-cart  verb, to travel in a Cape cart.
1920 R.Y. Stormberg Mrs Pieter de Bruyn 44I Cape-carted it over to the outspan winkel.
1920 R.Y. Stormberg Mrs Pieter de Bruyn 63We’re having a last little indaba all together, and then Gwenno Cape-carts it back home.
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18321991

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Cape-cart

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