Beginner’s question.
A text I’ve been perusing offers carrus, defining it as a cart or waggon. But then later, in the examples, it uses currus instead. My Latin reference lists both words, defining carrus as a four-wheeled baggage waggon, and currus as a chariot or car, especially for racing or war.
What’s the real story on these two nouns?
currus is a horse-driven vehicle meant to carry a person, generally a chariot. It is a native Latin word, from the same root as currere.
carrus or carrum refers quite specifically to a style of wagon uses by the Gauls. While it is from the same PIE roots as currus, it is probably only used so frequently as it is in modern texts because English and Romance languages derive their words for cars from it. It probably owes its overthrowing of the native Latin word to the fact that it looks and sounds so much like it, as well as being easier to pronounce.