Dictionary

drayman en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree English dray Proto-Indo-European *mon- Proto-Germanic *mann- Proto-West Germanic *mann Old English mann Middle English man Middle English -man English -man English drayman From dray + -man.

Meanings

1. (archaic) A man who drives drays.
   • [Editor David W. Blight said:] Deeply in need of father figures and spiritual hope, and “religiously seeking knowledge,” as he recalled it, the slave boy [the young Frederick Douglass] turned to a religious black man, a freeman named Charles Lawson, who worked as a drayman for a rope maker and lived on Happy Alley in Fells Point. Frederick spent countless hours with Lawson in the drayman’s shack reading the bible aloud, singing hymns, and praying together. “I could teach him the letter, but he could teach me the spirit,” Douglass remembered. Throughout his life Douglass would teach his teachers and learn from them at the same time. From old Lawson he gained […] above all […] a belief in a benevolent and protective God, the faith that his “life was under the guidance of a wisdom higher than my own.” 1997 [1797], David W. Blight, “Editor's Introduction: The Peculiar Dialogue Between Caleb Bingham and Frederick Douglass”, in Caleb Bingham, edited by David W. Blight, The Columbian Orator, Bicentennial Edition (1997 republishing), New York University Press, →ISBN:
2. A deliveryman for a brewery.
   • I likewiſe delivered up my Watch, which the Emperor was very curious to ſee, and commanded two of his talleſt Yeomen of the Guards to bear it on a Pole upon their Shoulders, as Dray-Men in England do a Barrel of Ale. 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Emperor of Lilliput, Attended by Several of the Nobility, Come to See the Author in His Confinement. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part I (A Voyage to Lilliput), page 45:

Forms

Relateds

drayful · drayload