A small, lightweight cart pulled by one or two people, used as a taxi in some Asian cities.
From Japanese 'jinrikisha' (literally 'human-powered vehicle,' from 'jin' meaning person + 'riki' meaning power/strength + 'sha' meaning vehicle). The word was shortened to 'rickshaw' by English speakers in the 1880s-1890s as the vehicles became popular in India and Southeast Asia.
The rickshaw is a perfect example of how technology evolves locally — invented in Japan around 1872 as a replacement for palanquins, it spread across Asia and became the primary urban transport for millions, yet it's virtually unknown in the West except as an exotic tourist curiosity, showing how transportation shapes different cultures completely differently.
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