What does taxi mean?
In modern English, taxi most often denotes a car or other motor vehicle with a driver, available to carry paying passengers. Such vehicles may be obtained by hailing one in the street, waiting at a taxi stand or rank, or booking one in advance. The term is neutral and international, although cab is particularly common in British English and taxicab is somewhat more formal. Taxi can also function as a verb: a person may taxi somewhere, or a driver may taxi passengers, while aviation uses the word for the slow movement of an aircraft under its own power. Taxi is especially useful in English because it has both a familiar everyday meaning and a more specialized technical use that survives in cockpit and air-traffic vocabulary. Although the modern vehicle is often simply called a cab, taxi preserves the history of fare calculation and the older sense of hired passenger transport.
A motor vehicle with a driver that carries passengers for a fare, whether hired at a stand, hailed in the street, or booked in advance.
"The quickest way to the airport was by taxi."
Taxi is neutral and broadly international; cab is especially common in British English.
To travel or carry someone in a taxi; in aviation, to move an aircraft slowly under its own power on the ground.
"They taxied to the convention center and left the car parked outside."
The aviation sense is technical and standard in aviation and air-traffic contexts.
The plural taxis is standard and refers to multiple vehicles or drivers.
"A line of taxis waited outside the terminal."
The word taxi began life as a shortened form of taximeter, the device used to calculate a passenger's fare.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does taxi come from?
English borrowed taxi from French in the early 20th century. The French word was a shortening of taximeter, a fare-measuring device whose name combines Greek taxis, meaning “arrangement” or “order,” with the metre. The same Greek root underlies words such as taxis and taxonomy, while taxicab and taximeter are compounds associated with the development of the modern taxi trade.
Related word forms
How taxi is actually used
Taxi is neutral in everyday English. Cab is especially common in British usage, taxicab is more formal, and hackney carriage is now dated. The verb is commonly transitive, as in “taxi someone home,” while the aviation sense is standard among pilots and air-traffic personnel.
Easily confused with taxi
A taxi is a vehicle that carries passengers for hire, whereas a tax is a sum of money imposed by a government or other authority.