Other forms: taxis, taxiing, taxied
A taxi is a car you pay to take you exactly where you want. Hail a taxi, a taxi rank, call a taxi.
London black cabs must pass the Knowledge, a test of every street and route within six miles of Charing Cross that takes years to learn. Cab is short for cabriolet and is the older word. As a verb, an aircraft taxis when it moves on the ground under its own power. Note taxi rank; and that taxi is short for taximeter cab, named after the meter.
1nountaxiA car you pay to take you where you want.
“We missed the last bus, so we took a taxi home.”
2verbmoveTo move on the ground, of an aircraft.
“The plane taxied slowly to the runway before take-off.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
taxi is a hired vehicle.
Also accepted in games: cab
Taxi is short for taximeter cab, from French taximètre, from Medieval Latin taxa, a charge. The vehicle is named after the machine that counts the fare.
Proto-Indo-European
*teh₂g-
Medieval Latin
taxa — tax, charge
German
Taxameter
French
taximètre
English, today
taxi
Built from
Shortened from taximeter cab, taximeter (“automatic meter that records distance and fare”) from French taximètre, from German Taxameter (whence also English taxameter), coined from Medieval Latin taxa (“tax, charge”). More at tax, task. The aviation sense originally derived from a slang term for training aircraft used for practicing ground operations, which were said to drive around the airfield like a taxicab, and subsequently applied to all aircraft ground movements.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA