carriages
- 1Plural of carriage.
The royal procession included several gilded carriages drawn by white horses.
Coachbuilders restored the old carriages for the town's historic parade.
Note
A regular plural: carriage plus -s, with the stem unchanged. In British usage it also names the cars of a train, so passengers boarding the front carriages are on a railroad, not in a horse-drawn procession. The fixed phrase on an invitation, as in "carriages at one," belongs to the dated closing-hour sense and does not refer to any vehicle in particular.
- 2An indication, usually on a formal invitation, of the time an event will end, originally naming the hour when guests' carriages would arrive to take them home.
Like the "ends at 9 PM" line printed at the bottom of a modern event invitation.
The card read "carriages at one," letting everyone know the ball's closing hour.
She noted carriages at half past eleven and planned the supper accordingly.
Note
A phrase for the formal card rather than for conversation: it takes at plus a clock time, with no article (carriages at one, carriages at half past eleven). Because it is dated, it now reads as period flavor. It suits historical fiction or a deliberately old-fashioned invitation. A plain modern card would simply give an end time.
carriages is a form of carriage
carriage, noun: A light, usually four-wheeled vehicle for carrying people, typically drawn by horses. Full entry
- Forms
- carriagecarriages plural
- Spelling
- carriage → carriages: add -s
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