Brewer's: Coach

(A) A private tutor The term is a pun on getting on fast. To get on fast you take a coach, you cannot get on fast without a private tutor —ergo, a private tutor is the coach you take in order that you may get on quickly. (University slang.)

“The books are expensive, and often a further expense is entailed by the necessity of securing `a coach.' ” —Stedman Oxford, chap. x. p. 188.

To dine in the coach.
In the captain's private room. The coach or couch of a ship is a small apartment near the stern, the floor being formed of the aftmost part of the quarter-deck, and the roof by the poop.

A slow coach.
A dull, unprogressive person, somewhat fossilised.

“What a dull, old-fashioned chap thou be st but thou wert always a slow-coach.” —Mrs. Gaskell: Cibbie Marsh (Era 2).

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
Coach-and-four
Co
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