The Horse & the Cart

“Car” is a noun.  The plural noun is “cars”.  A car is, of course, a four-wheeled road vehicle that is powered by an engine and is able to carry a small number of people.  It may also refer to a railway carriage, or the passenger compartment of a lift, cableway, or balloon. 

“Horse” is a noun. The plural noun is “horses”.  Generally, this refers to a domesticated odd-toed ungulate mammal.  It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae, and is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus.  In earlier military parlance, it referred to cavalry.  It may also refer to a frame or structure on which something is mounted or supported, especially a sawhorse.  In nautical terms, a horse is a horizontal bar, rail, or rope in the rigging of a sailing ship, short for vaulting horse.  It is also a verb, meaning “to provide a person or vehicle with a horse or horses.” In such a case, the 3^rd person present tense is “horses”; past tense is “horsed”; past participle is “horsed”; and the gerund or present participle is “horsing” 

The word “car” originated from late Middle English, in the general sense of any wheeled vehicle, from Old Northern French “carre”, based on the Latin “carrum”, or “karrus”, of proto-Celtic origin, where it referred to the carts.  On the other hand, “horse” came from Old English “hors”, which is of Germanic origin; related to Dutch “ros” and German “Ross”, from proto-Germanic “hrussa”; and always referred to the animal.  Both karrus”, of Celtic and “hrussa” of proto-Germanic originated from the proto-Indo-European “krsos”, of Sanskrit origin. 

In summary, the English word for “car” which has always referred to the wheeled vehicle that was pulled by the horse before it entered Modern English, and the English word for “horse”, which has always referred to the animal that pulled the cart, came from the same root word in Sanskrit.  Both words took a different root to arrive in Modern English, with the “horse” coming through the Germanic roots of English, and the “car” through the “Latin” roots of English.  Since “car” came from Middle English, and “horse” from Old English, the horse did come before the cart.