They say that it was a certain Harry Nathaniel Allen of New York who imported 600 cars from France for his transport company. From taximeter cabriolet he coined the word taxicab. This was then further clipped, at the end in Britain, at the beginning in America, thus giving taxi and cab! A cabriolet was a horse-drawn carriage, from French cabrioler, ‘leap’, ‘caper’, ultimately going back to Latin capreolus, ‘roebuck’ (which is also at the bottom of German Kapriolen!). Taximeter is an adaptation of French taximètre, from German taxameter, coined on the basis of Medieval Latin taxa, ‘tax’, ‘charge’ and Greek metron, ‘measure’. The OED describes the uncertainty when it came to naming the new invention: “Every journalist … has his idea of what the vehicle should be called. It has been described as the (1) taxi, (2) motor-cab, (3) taxi-cab, (4) taximo … (7) taximeter-cab. (Daily Chronicle 26 Mar 1906: 6/7)