Why this word is great
CAROCHE — [Noun] A stately, enclosed, and opulent horse-drawn carriage of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, used for ceremonial display and aristocratic assertion. From French caroche, from Italian carroccio, an augmentative form of carro (“cart, wagon”), ultimately from Latin carrus (“wheeled vehicle”). Unlike a chariot—an open, martial platform of speed—or a coach—the generic, functional workhorse of conveyance—a caroche was a mobile throne-room, a rolling theater of state. It is the heavy crunch of iron-rimmed wheels on raked gravel; the glint of gilt scrollwork on lacquered black panels; the muffled, rhythmic clop of four perfectly matched horses moving in solemn unison—a vessel designed not for travel, but for the slow, splendid performance of power, rolling silently toward its own obsolescence.