subs. (formerly university and public schools’; now common).—A private tutor; and in a transferred sense one who trains another in mental or physical acquirements, e.g., in Sanskrit, Shakespeare, cricket, or rowing. Analogous terms are CRAMMER, FEEDER, and GRINDER.
1850. F. E. SMEDLEY, Frank Fairlegh, ch. xxix., p. 240. Besides the regular college tutor, I secured the assistance of what, in the slang of the day, we irreverently termed a COACH.
1853. REV. E. BRADLEY (‘Cuthbert Bede’), The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman, pt. I., pp. 63–4. ‘That man is Cram, the patent safety. He ’s the first COACH in Oxford.’ ‘A COACH!’ said our freshman in some wonder. ‘Oh, I forgot you did n’t know college-slang. I suppose a royal mail is the only gentleman coach that you know of. Why, in Oxford, a COACH means a private tutor, you must know; and those who can’t afford a COACH, get a cab—alias a crib,—alias a translation.
1864. B. HEMYNG, Eton School Days, ch. ix., p. 103. Lord Fitzwinton, one of the smallest and best COACHES [in aquatics] in the school.
1871. Times. ‘Report of the Debate in House of Lords on University Test Bill.’ The test proposed would be wholly ineffective … while it would apply to the college tutors, who had little influence over the young men, it would not affect the COACHES, who had the chief direction of their studies.
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 29 Nov., p. 1, col. 3. The schoolmaster is concerned with the education of boys up to eighteen; all beyond that falls either to the COACH or the professor.
Verb (common).—To prepare for an examination by private instruction; to train: in general use both by coacher and coachee.
1846. THACKERAY, Vanity Fair, ch. v. The superb Cuff himself … helped him on with his Latin verses, COACHED him in play-hours.
1870. London Figaro, June 10. ‘Quadrille Conversation.’ It is, we fear, Quixotic to hope that ladies and gentlemen invited to the same ball would COACH with the same master.
