[f. next. Cf. F. transport transfer of rights (1312 in Godef., Compl.), med.L. transportus (Du Cange) transferment.]
1. The action of carrying or conveying a thing or person from one place to another; conveyance.
1611. Florio, Trasporto, a transportation, a transport.
1621. Elsing, Debates Ho. Lords (Camden), 11. The Bill against transport of golde and sylver.
1674. Josselyn, Voy. New Eng., 12. Undertaking the Transport of his Family.
1841. Elphinstone, Hist. India, II IX. i. 277. Availing himself of the Jamna and Ganges for the transport of his stores and part of his army.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, III. III. vi. 251. Sale at prices sufficient to cover the whole cost of transport.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 634. The Conducting Tissue for the transport of the formative materials.
1894. Geol. Mag., Oct., 470. In the same way the beds at Moel Tryfaen are regarded as examples of glacial transport.
† b. fig. Transference. Obs.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I. ii. Many are now poor wandring beggars … whoare descended of … great Kings and Emperours, occasioned … by the transport and revolution of Kingdoms and Empires.
† c. Transfer or conveyance of property. Obs.
App. the earliest use in English. It is the regular term for ‘transfer of shares’ in the Minute Books of the East India Company 1624–8.
1456. Sir G. Haye, Law Arms (S.T.S.), 133. Men takis landis … and syne makis transport of thame, and puttis tham in othir menis handis.
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. ccxii. 258. The sayde renounciacion, transportes, sessynge, and leauynge of all the sayde thynges.
1607. (Nov. 13) E. India Co. Court Bk., II. 59 (MS.). Notwithstanding the transport made at the last Court of Mr. Bramley’s adventure by Agnes Smyth to Mr. Robert Sandie.
1682. Scarlett, Exchanges, 55. By this Endorsement, he to whom the Bill is sent, is the true and right Possessor of it, and needs no further Assignation, Transport, or any other Title or Right.
† 2. Transference of a word to a different meaning; metaphor. Obs. rare.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, III. xvii. (Arb.), 189. To call the top of a tree, or of a hill, the crowne of a tree or of a hill … because such terme is not applyed naturally to a tree, or to a hill, but is transported from a mans head to a bill or tree, therefore it is called by metaphore, or the figure of transport.
3. The state of being ‘carried out of oneself,’ i.e., out of one’s normal mental condition; vehement emotion (now usu. of a pleasurable kind); mental exaltation, rapture, ecstasy. Also with a and pl., an instance of this, a fit of joy or rage; sometimes transf. an ecstatic utterance.
1658. Phillips, A Transport,… also a sudden trance, or rapture of minde.
1663. Bp. Patrick, Parab. Pilgr., xiii. (1687), 84. Can you imagine into what transports it will cast your soul to hear the praises of the Creator sung by all his Works?
1686. trans. Chardin’s Trav. Persia, 146. An unheard-of Transport of Fury.
a. 1715. Burnet, Own Times, an. 1660 (1766), I. II. 151. The letter was received with transports of joy.
1796. Jane Austen, Pride & Prej., l. When the first transports of rage which had produced his activity in seeking her were over, he naturally returned to all his former indolence.
1854. J. S. C. Abbott, Napoleon (1855), I. xxvi. 413. He was hailed with transport wherever he appeared.
4. A means of transportation or conveyance; orig. a vessel employed in transporting soldiers, military stores, or convicts; later, the horses, wagons, etc., employed in transporting the ammunition and supplies of an army; sometimes including the things so conveyed.
1694. [implied in transport-ship: see 6].
1712. E. Cooke, Voy. S. Sea, 140. At Five in the Afternoon, the Transports row’d for the Town of Guayaquil.
1783. Justamond, trans. Raynal’s Hist. Indies, VII. 72. [He] took three thousand men of regular troops or of militia, which he embarked upon twenty-five transports.
1834. Napier, Penins. War, XVI. iii. (Rtldg.) II. 341. From the scarcity of transports only 38 guns could be brought to the trenches.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xiv. III. 411. The Dee was crowded with men of war and transports.
1879. A. Forbes, in Daily News, 13 June, 5/5. That all-important element in campaigning, the transport, including in that term the animals, the waggons, and the supplies.
1897. S. L. Hinde, Congo Arabs, 86. One woman and a boy acted as transport.
1900. Dundee Advertiser, 17 May, 4. All our larger transport has arrived without mishap. The men and horses are standing the continuous strain admirably, not withstanding the heavy roads.
5. A transported convict; a person under sentence of transportation. Now rare.
1767. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 58/2. Fourteen transports from Durham … were put on board … bound for Virginia.
1777. Howard, Prisons Eng. (1780), 386. The county has for some years … clothed such transports as were quite indigent.
1817. 2nd Rep. Comm. Police Metrop., Min. Evid., 392. Have you ever known any instances of returned transports obtaining licences to keep public houses?
1851. D. Jerrold, St. Giles, xix. 199. You don’t mean to say … that you are an escaped transport?
6. attrib. and Comb., as transport-agent, -carriage, † felon, -hoy, -labour, -service, -wagon, worker, etc.; † transport-bill, † debenture, a voucher given for a claim for transport services; † transport brief, deed, a transfer-deed; transport-buoy, a buoy used for the mooring and warping of vessels; transport-rider (South Africa), a goods carrier; so transport-riding, carriage of goods; transport-ship, -vessel: see 4.
1897. J. K. Laughton, in Dict. Nat. Biog. LII. 156/2. He was appointed *transport agent for the expedition to Egypt.
1710. Lond. Gaz., No. 4637/3. Lost…, four *Transport-Bills,… being for two Months Freight each on the Ship Success,… Signed by … her Majesty’s Commissioners for Transportation.
1895. J. Brown, Pilgr. Fathers, IV. 124. It was conveyed … by a *transport brief or deed made on the 5th of May 1611.
1793. Smeaton, Edystone L., § 102. The use that was made of *Transport Buoys, in the moving and mooring the king’s ships in the Hamoaze.
1895. Daily News, 18 Oct., 5/5. Dr. Hönig’s new bicycle *transport-carriages for sick people.
1707. Lond. Gaz., No. 4311/3. A *Transport-Debenture for the Year 1697. No. 32. for 965 l. 3 s. 4 d. is lost.
1766. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 134/2. Three hundred *transport felons … have been shipped at Blackwall for the plantations.
1705. Lond. Gaz., No. 4167/3. This day came into Kingroad … two *Transport-Hoys.
1850. R. G. Cumming, Hunter’s Life S. Afr. (1902), 10/2. The Dutchman along their road being very unfriendly and inhospitable to the English *transport-riders.
1909. R. Cullum, Compact, xii. 143. Each waggon has two coloured transport-riders.
1900. Haggard, Black Heart, i. *Transport-riding—that is, in carrying goods on ox waggons from Durban or Maritzburg to various points in the interior.
1817. Parl. Deb., 584. A resolution then passed for 142,500l. for the *transport service.
1694. Act 5 & 6 Will. & Mary, c. 23 § 3. The *Transport Shipps for the Warr of Ireland.
1701. Lond. Gaz., No. 3712/3. Several Transport Ships are arrived at Williamstad with Recruits.
1722. De Foe, Col. Jack, ii. Coming to the common period of that kind of life, I mean to the transport-ship, or to the gallows.
1700. Tyrrell, Hist. Eng., II. 795. Fourscore Cogs, a sort of small *Transport-Vessels.
1903. Westm. Gaz., 8 April, 5/2. The railwaymen, who are federated with the *transport workers, declining to handle any traffic which had been unloaded by ‘free’ labourers.
