"baby carriage," 1881, a colloquial shortening of perambulator, perhaps influenced by pram "flat-bottomed boat" (1540s), especially a type used in Baltic ports for loading and unloading merchant vessels, from Old Norse pramr, from Balto-Slavic (compare Polish prom, Russian poromu "ferryboat," Czech pram "raft"), from PIE *pro-, from root *per- (1) "forward," hence "in front of, toward, through."