curriculum

Curricle comes from Latin curriculum, a diminutive of currus (chariot), from the verb currere, to run. In Latin, curriculum meant a small chariot or a racing course — the track that chariots ran on. English borrowed curricle in the eighteenth century to name a specific type of light, fast, two-wheeled carriage drawn by two horses abreast. It was the sports car of the Regency era.

The curricle was popular among wealthy young men in England between about 1770 and 1830. It was fast, expensive, and dangerous. The two horses were yoked side by side rather than in tandem, which made the vehicle quick but unstable. Jane Austen mentions curricles in several novels — Henry Tilney drives one in Northanger Abbey. In Austen's world, the type of carriage a man drove was a statement of wealth and character.

The word curriculum, meanwhile, took a different path. Scottish universities began using it in the 1600s to mean 'a course of study' — the metaphor being a course that students run through. By the nineteenth century, curriculum had become the standard English word for an educational program. The chariot meaning faded. The course-of-study meaning grew. The same Latin word split into two English words with two completely different lives.

The curricle disappeared from roads by the 1840s, replaced by four-wheeled carriages that were safer and more comfortable. The word now appears only in historical fiction and Regency romance novels. But curriculum — the same Latin word, one letter different — is used daily in every school system in the world. The chariot was forgotten. The racecourse became a syllabus.