jitney

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The Word of the Day for March 13 is:

jitney   \JIT-nee\   noun
    *1 : bus; especially : a small bus that carries passengers over a
regular route on a flexible schedule
     2 : an unlicensed taxicab

Example sentence:
     Guests at the seedy hotel could ride from its parking lot to the
beach in a battered jitney that seated 15 comfortably, but that held
20 or more on most trips.

Did you know?
     The original jitneys weren't worth a dime -- just a nickel. In the
early 1900s, "jitney" was slang for "nickel" (the origin of this use
is unknown), but it wasn't long before the term was applied to a new
mode of public transportation that only cost a nickel -- at first,
anyway. When they were introduced in American cities at the beginning
of the century, vehicular jitneys could be any automobiles that
carried passengers over a set route for a cheap fare, but eventually
the term was applied specifically to small buses.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.





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