CART, a land carriage with two wheels, drawn com-
monly by horses, to carry heavy goods, &c. from one place
to another. The word seems formed from the French
charrette, which signifies the same, or rather the Latin
carreta, a diminutive of carus. See MECHANICS, and
WHEEL-CARRIAGES.
Scripture makes mention of a sort of carts or drags used
by the Jews for the purpose of threshing. They were
supported on low thick wheels, bound with iron, which
were rolled up and down on the sheaves, to break them,
and force out the corn. Something of the same kind also
obtained among the Romans, under the denomination of
plaustra, of which Virgil makes mention in the first Geor-
gic. According to Servius, trahea denotes a cart without
wheels, while tribula is a sort of cart armed on all sides with
teeth, and chiefly used in Africa for threshing corn. The
Septuagint and St. Jerome represent these carts as furnish-
ed with saws, inasmuch that their surface was beset with
teeth. David having taken Rabbah, the capital of the
Ammonites, ordered all the inhabitants to be crushed to
pieces under such carts, moving on wheels set with iron
teeth; and the king of Damascus is said to have treated
the Israelites of the land of Gilead in the same manner.