Meaning & use
chauffeur
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Meanings
nouncountable
A person whose paid job is to drive a car for someone else, especially for an official, executive or wealthy person.
Grammar: Countable: a chauffeur, the ambassador's chauffeur.
Patterns
- a chauffeur for someone
- hire a chauffeur
The ambassador's chauffeur waited by the car outside the embassy.
The hotel offers a chauffeur to take guests to the airport.
A uniformed chauffeur opened the door of the limousine.
verbtransitiveinformal
To drive someone from place to place, as a chauffeur would, or in a casual way for family or friends.
Grammar: Takes an object and is often followed by around or to: chauffeur the kids to practice.
Patterns
- chauffeur someone around
- chauffeur someone to something
I spend my weekends chauffeuring the kids to games.
She chauffeured her grandmother to the doctor's office.
A volunteer chauffeured the guests around the city.
Word forms
| plural | chauffeurs |
|---|---|
| third person singular | chauffeurs |
| past tense | chauffeured |
| past participle | chauffeured |
| -ing form | chauffeuring |
Common combinations
- private chauffeur
- The family employs a private chauffeur.
- chauffeur service
- He booked a chauffeur service for the wedding.
- chauffeur-driven car
- A chauffeur-driven car collected them from the station.
- personal chauffeur
- She works as a personal chauffeur for a banker.
- uniformed chauffeur
- A uniformed chauffeur held up a sign with his name.
Synonyms and how they differ
- driver
- Driver is the general term for anyone who drives, whereas chauffeur means someone hired to drive for a client or employer.
- cabbie
- Cabbie is informal and means a taxi driver who takes any passenger, while a chauffeur serves a particular person or company.
- limo driver
- Limo driver is informal and ties the job to a limousine, whereas a chauffeur may drive any car.
Opposites
Word family
- chauffeured adjective
- driven by a hired driver
- chauffeuring noun
- the activity of driving someone around
Commonly confused: chauffeur or chaffeur? chauffeur or chauvinist?
chauffeur vs chaffeur
This is a common misspelling. The correct spelling is chauffeur, with au after the ch, and it is pronounced like shoh-fer.
chauffeur vs chauvinist
A chauvinist is someone with extreme or prejudiced loyalty. It begins with the same letters as chauffeur but has a different meaning.
Practice
Which sentence is spelled correctly?
Choose one answer.
Chauffeur is spelled with au after ch and ends in -eur, as in French. The other options are common misspellings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “chauffeur”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.