[f. COACH sb. + MAN.]
1. The man who drives a coach.
1579. Gosson, Sch. Abuse (Arb.), 33. He [Caligula loued Prasinus the Cochman so wel, that [etc.].
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, III. xxii. (Arb.), 266. Comming to salute the Queene … he said to her Cochman, stay thy cart good fellow, stay thy cart, that I may speake to the Queene.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Σκιαμαχια, Wks. (1711), 197. A Coach-man of a Lord of Parliament.
1711. Swift, Lett. (1767), III. 161. The dean … sent me his chariot, which has cost me two shillings to the coachman.
1828. Southey, Ep. Allan Cunningham. With coachmen’s quarrels, and with footmen’s shouts.
1878. Seeley, Stein, III. 498. Calling him ‘a good horse, but a bad coachman.’
† b. poet. A charioteer. Obs.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, II. (Arb.), 59. Coachmen of old of Achilles.
1611. Chapman, Iliad, XIII. 866. 177. His coachman led them to his Lord.
c. techn. The driver of a fire-engine.
1883. Pall Mall Gaz., 23 Oct., 4/2. In securing a quick start a great responsibility rests upon the ‘coachman.’
2. Angling. A kind of artificial fly.
1839. in T. C. Hofland, Brit. Angler’s Man., 211.
1852. Blaine, Encycl. Rural Sports, 1162. A mothlike artificial representation known in [Herefordshire] as Harding’s or the coachman’s from a stage coach driver of that name who was an excellent fly fisher.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, vi. (1880), 243. The Coachman.—This is one of the best evening and night flies.
Hence Coachmanlike a., Coachmanhood.
1826. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. II. (1863), 320. A most magnificent coachmanlike wig.
1859. Sala, Tw. round Clock (1861), 206. The mighty plush galligaskins of coachmanhood.
