straphanger
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Noun[edit]
straphanger (plural straphangers)
- A person who travels using public transportation (often standing up and holding on to a strap).
- 1970, Saul Bellow, chapter 1, in Mr. Sammler’s Planet[1], Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, published 1971, page 8:
- For several days, Mr. Sammler returning on the customary bus late afternoons from the Forty-second Street Library had been watching a pickpocket at work […] Mr. Sammler if he had not been a tall straphanger would not with his one good eye have seen these things happening.
- 2008 May 19, William Neuman, “$1 Billion Later, Subway Elevators Still Fail”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 Nov. 2009:
- The number of elevators has grown significantly since 1990, when the Americans With Disabilities Act set off a transformation of the aging transit system. For the disabled, the changes promised to open doors, while thousands of other straphangers—parents with strollers, older travelers—expected a small dose of convenience in a wearying city.
Related terms[edit]
References[edit]
- “straphanger”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.