the.com/cabriolet
A convertible dressed up in French so the roof-leak sounds elegant.
means A car (or, originally, a light horse-drawn carriage) with a folding or removable roof, prized for letting the weather in with style.
from From French cabriolet, a diminutive of cabriole meaning 'a leap' or 'caper' — the same root that gives us 'caper' in English, both tracing back to Latin capra, 'goat.' The light, two-wheeled horse carriage of the 1700s was named for its bouncy, goat-like motion over cobblestones. When early automakers wanted a word for their open-topped cars, they borrowed the old carriage name, and the goat's leap got reclassified as effortless French chic.
- origin
- named after a bouncy 18th-century horse carriage
- literal meaning
- french for little goat, for its jump
- marketing trick
- same car, fancier name, pricier badge
- mercedes habit
- uses it instead of plain convertible