four-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage, popularly thought to have originated in Hungary in the 15th century. The word coach often is used interchangeably with “carriage,” but a coach is generally either a public carriage—such as a stagecoach, Concord coach, mail coach, or the modern railway coach—or an opulent carriage of state. A coach has a suspended, enclosed body, with a roof forming part of its framing, and two inside transverse seats facing one another, for carrying four or six passengers.

Various authorities date the introduction of the coach to England at 1555–80. In Germany coaches were numerous in the 16th century, and the Berlin coach, which was characterized by its two-perch running gear and thoroughbrace suspension, was introduced in about 1660. In Paris, in 1645, there were fiacre coaches or cabs for hire, although there had been private carriages in Paris as early as 1550. In 16th-century England, poets derogated coaches as ostentatious vehicles employed by wantons and rakes, and the Thames watermen (boatmen), whose living suffered, also complained bitterly of them.

In colonial America, the few coaches of the late 17th century were used primarily by governors and only in such places as Boston and New York City, which had roads. Bostonians later attacked coaches as works of the devil, thereby unwittingly echoing the edict of the German noble, Julius of Brunswick, who, in an edict of 1588, had forbidden his vassals to ride in coaches.

Until recently the standard coach in Europe was divided into six- or eight-seat compartments, with a corridor extending along one side. These have now been largely replaced with coaches on the U.S. model, which have a centre-aisle arrangement, uncompartmented seats, and doors usually at each end of the car.

Among specialized types of coaches, the dome car, developed in the United States in the 1950s, gives passengers a wide-range view from under a raised, glassed-in roof.