gurney

Unknown. Possibly from Gurney cab, a type of horse-drawn cab on wheels named after Theodore Gurney, the US inventor credited with creating and patenting it in about 1883.

• Rhymes: -ɜː(r)ni

gurney (plural gurneys)

1. (US) A stretcher having wheeled legs.

   Synonym: trolley (Britain)

   • 2001, Joyce Carol Oates, Middle Age: A Romance, Fourth Estate, paperback edition, page 22

     Yet her vision has narrowed strangely (good, for she was in a medical facility, if she were having a hemorrhage or a stroke it could not be happening at a more convenient time) so that she was able to see little in the fluorescent-lit space except the man who lay motionless on a gurney beneath the strongest of the lights.

   • 2005, Jeph Jacques, Questionable Content, Number 506: The Talk, Part 7

     I’m pretty sure I didn’t actively steer towards the tree, but… I don’t know. I just remember that wave of despair and then the EMTs pulling me out of the car and putting me on a gurney.

• ungrey