Cart
From Freepedia
- "Cart" may also mean cartridge. "CART" may mean Championship Auto Racing Teams or Center for Advanced Research and Technology.
Image:Australian cart.jpg Image:Horsecart with watermelons.jpg
A cart is a vehicle or device using, usually, two wheels for transport. A dray is a heavy transport version of a cart, usually with four wheels.
Hand-carts pushed by humans have been used around the world. In the 19th century, for instance, some Mormons travelling across the plains of the USA between 1857 and 1865 used handcarts. Perhaps the most common example today is the shopping cart (British English: shopping trolley), which has also come to have a metaphorical meaning in relation to online purchases (here, British English uses the metaphor of the shopping basket). Shopping carts first made their appearance in Oklahoma City in 1937.
The golf cart, designed to carry golfers and their clubs around a golf course faster and with less effort than walking, is another well known modern type of cart – in this case, self-propelled.
Larger carts may be drawn by animals, such as horses, mules, or oxen. They have been in continuous use since the invention of the wheel, in the 5th millennium BC. Carts may be named for the animal that pulls them such as horsecarts or oxcarts. A dogcart, however, was usually a cart designed to carry hunting dogs: an open cart with two cross-seats back to back; the dogs could be penned between the rear-facing seat and the back end.
An animal-drawn cart can bear the archaic name of wain, (from the Old English and German root-word for wagon), for example a haywain, and the builders of such vehicles became known as "cartwrights" or "wainwrights". These terms survive as surnames of those descended from those practising these trades. Note too the surname "Carter".
Carts have many different shapes but the basic idea of transporting material (or maintaining a collection of materials in a portable fashion) remains. Carts usually have two or four wheels. Those with four wheels (drays or wagons) will often have a pivoting front axle that has a pole connected to the collars or yoke of the two guiding draught animals. The traces from the draught animals are connected to the pivoting axle and then, by chain, to the rear axle. Two-wheeled carts normally have shafts, one along each side of the draught animal that supports the forward-balanced load in the cart. The shafts are supported by a saddle on the horse. The draught traces attach to the axle of the vehicle. In all cases the traces are attached to a collar (on horses), to a yoke (on other heavy draught animals) or to a harness on dogs or other light animals. One-horse carts are common, on the other hand drays are pulled by many animals, as many as 8 or 10 depending on what is being hauled.
Traces are made from a range of materials depending on the load and frequency of use. Heavy draught traces are made from iron or steel chain. Lighter traces are often leather and sometimes hemp rope but plaited horse-hair and other, similar, decorative materials can be used.
The Dray is often associated with the transport of barrels, particularly of beer.
The term "Kart", derived from "cart", refers to a small racing car - also known as a "Go-Kart".
A soap-box cart (also known as a Billy Cart, Go-Cart, Trolley etc.) is a popular children's construction project.
