limousine [E20th] In French a limousine was a cloak with a cape, of a type worn in Limousin, a region of central France. People saw a resemblance between this distinctive garment and early forms of motor car in which the driver’s seat was outside in a separate compartment covered with a canopy. The name, first recorded shortly after 1900, passed to large, luxurious cars driven by a chauffeur separated from the passengers by a partition. The word was abbreviated to limo in the 1960s, while in the 1980s the stretch limo made its appearance.