# travois
## English
### Etymology

* PIE word
* *tréyes
The noun is derived from Michif travawy (IPA: /tɹæˈvɔɪ/), from Canadian French travail (“travois”), from French travail, from Middle French travail, from Old French travail (“frame for restraining horses and cattle for medical treatment or shoeing”), from Late Latin tripālium (“torture device consisting of three stakes”), from Latin tripālis (“having, or propped up by, three pales or stakes”) (from tri- (prefix meaning ‘three’) + pālus (“pale, stake”)) + -ium (suffix forming nouns).
The spelling travois and pronunciations /ˈtɹævwɑ(ː)/, /tɹævˈwɑ/ are probably influenced by French -ois (suffix forming adjectives relating to particular countries, regions, or cities, their associated inhabitant names, and the local languages or dialects).
The verb is derived from the noun.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /tɹəˈvɔɪ/, /ˈtɹævɔɪ/, /ˈtɹævwɑː/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* (General American) IPA: /tɹəˈvɔɪ/, /ˈtɹævɔɪ/, /ˈtɹævwɑ/, /tɹævˈwɑ/
* Rhymes: -ɔɪ, (one GA pronunciation) -ɑ
* Hyphenation: tra‧vois

### Noun

travois (plural travoises or travois)
* (originally and chiefly Canada, US, historical) A frame, often consisting of two poles tied together at one end to form a V-shaped structure with the vertex attached to a dog, horse, etc., or held by a person and the other ends touching the ground, which was used by indigenous peoples (notably the Plains Aboriginals of North America) to drag loads over land.
** 1892, Julian Ralph, “‘Talking Musquash’: Concluding the Sketch of the History and Work of the Hudson Bay Company”, in On Canada’s Frontier […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, pages 236–237:On the plains they will have horses dragging travoises, dogs with travoises, women and children loaded with impedimenta, […]
** 1994, Cormac McCarthy, chapter I, in The Crossing (The Border Trilogy; 2), New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →ISBN, page 5:Riding out for wood he watched his shadow and the shadow of the horse and travois cross those palings tree by tree. Boyd rode in the travois holding the axe as if he'd keep guard over the wood they'd gathered […]
* (by extension)
** 2025 Matthew Robert Bennett & Sally Christine Reynolds "Fossil footprints reveal what may be the oldest known handcarts", https://theconversation.com/fossil-footprints-reveal-what-may-be-the-oldest-known-handcarts-new-research-250438
    At White Sands, we found drag-marks made by the ends of wooden poles while excavating for fossil footprints. Sometimes these appear as just one trace, while at other times they occur as two parallel, equidistant traces. A pole or poles used in this fashion is called a travois. . . To help interpret these features, we . . . used different combinations of poles to recreate simple, hand-pulled travois . . . In our experiments the pole-ends dragged along the mud truncate footprints in the same way as the fossil example in New Mexico. . . . the footprints and drag-marks tell a story of the movement of resources . . . Adults pulled the simple. . . travois, while a group of children tagged along. . . Travois are known from historical documents and accounts of Indigenous peoples and their traditions. They were . . .associated with dogs or horses, but were pulled by humans in our tests. . . they represent early examples of the handcart or wheelbarrow, but without the wheel.
** A similar piece of equipment used to transport something by dragging; especially a stretcher dragged by a horse, mule, etc., used to transport an ill or injured person.
** (Canada, US, forestry, dated) A sled dragged by a horse or ox to transport logs, with one end of each log on the sled and the other end touching the ground.

#### Alternative forms

* travail, travoise, travoy

#### Hypernyms

* litter, horse litter, mule litter; ambulance (dated)

#### Translations
### Verb

travois (third-person singular simple present travoises, present participle travoising, simple past and past participle travoised)
* (transitive) To transport (someone or something) by means of a travois.
* (intransitive, rare) To use a travois to transport a load.

#### Translations
### References

* 1 2 “travois, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “travois, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
* ↑ Etymology and history of “travail$^2$”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
* ↑ “travois, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023.

### Further reading

* travois on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

### Anagrams

* Viators, viators