toboggan
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: aeronautics
aerospace
aviation
business
engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
Etymology: The noun is attested since 1829, the verb since 1846. Both derive from French tabaganne, which derives from an Algonquian word, probably Mi'kmaq tepaqan or Abenaki dabôgan, influenced by similar words in other Eastern Canadian Algonquian languages. The sense of "hat" is recorded since 1929 and is short for toboggan cap (1928), a cap suitable for wearing while tobogganing.
Inflected forms:
form: toboggans
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: tobogin
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: toboggin
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: toboggans
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: tobogganing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: tobogganning
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: tobogganed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: tobogganed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: tobogganned
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: tobogganned
pos: verb
tags: past
form: tobogin
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: toboggin
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A long sled without runners, with the front end curled upwards, which may be pulled across snow by a cord or used to coast down hills.
pos: noun
examples: Toboggan has not yet found its Way into the dictionaries, and there are other ways of spelling it.
Nothing could be more exciting and exhilarating than a slide, on sleigh or toboggan, from the lofty summit of the ice-mound or cone down to its base.
The “toboggan” is a light flat sleigh, used by the Canadian aborigines to bring home over the snow the spoils of the hunt.
The toboggan may be described as a flat plank turned up at one end.
A toboggan consists of two pieces of bark joined side by side and curved up at the front.
Every half hour or so one or the other would steal off with snowshoes and toboggan to make the round of the holes, often returning with half a dozen fish that together weighed perhaps twelve pounds, perhaps twenty-four pounds[…]
Trenance Park has gardens, a toboggan run, miniature golf and the indoor delights of Water World with its tropical fun pool and flumes.
gloss: A similar sled of wood, pulled by dogs, possibly with steel runners, made to transport cargo.
pos: noun
tags: Canada
US
examples: The old toboggan has been laid aside, and sleighs or waggons dash along the streets.
These animals are harnessed by a padded collar to a light flat sleigh, of skins stretched across a frame of thin wood, called a toboggan.
The steer dog next to the sleigh prevents this by immediately leading off at a sixty-degree angle from the direction the others are going, thereby compensating for the sidewise stress and keeping the toboggan in the clear until the bend has been passed.
gloss: Something which, once it starts going (figuratively) downhill, is unstoppable until it reaches the bottom.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: McGinnity began to hit the toboggan in 1906, after he had pitched his arm off the previous year. Last season his efforts at times were painful.
If we were to hit the toboggan of a depression, wages would drop.
Farming was on “the toboggan.” New settlers who had purchased land could not meet their deferred payments.
The fact that I agreed showed that there was no hope of getting off the toboggan more than momentarily.
We all have found out that once a show goes into rehearsal, it's a toboggan slide and there's not enough time. So we had six months of preproduction meetings.
gloss: A knit cap, designed to provide warmth in cold weather.
pos: noun
tags: Southern-US
Virginia
West
examples: Suppose we wish to make a pointed cap, such as used to be known as a toboggan cap, from yarn or worsted.
Sissy bounded back in dressed in a heavy sweater and toboggan.
If you must adorn your dog with a hat, go with a toboggan-style hat. If It was good enough for Snoopy, It Is definitely good enough for your dog.
We used an old toboggan stuffed with cotton for the ball, and it served the purpose very well.
gloss: To slide down a hill on a toboggan or other object.
pos: verb
examples: Mr. Macaulay, the landlord, insisted upon trying to "toboggan" us down the mountain on the saddle cloth of one of the horses, an attempt that ended of course in disaster, for the surface was much too small for the three of us, and the snow too soft for the purpose.
The aspect of this patient was greatly changed for the better; she was able to skate, toboggan, and mount 500 feet of Maloja Pass without fatigue.
I froze my toes some years ago, while tobogganing, and was unaware of it until I took off my shoe and walked across the room, when the unusual noise on the boards attracted my attention.
The hillside, lined with a coating of wet leaves ready to toboggan her down the slope, made her grateful for a few saplings that provided handholds.
gloss: To go downhill unstoppably until one reaches the bottom.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
examples: A depression in one nation can become the slide on which our civilization would toboggan into economic collapse.
I can't win, can I? You think I'm posh and my folks think I'm tobogganing down-market faster than the royal family.
gloss: To fly sharply downward so as to build up speed to facilitate in-flight refueling of a faster aircraft.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Aircraft returning to refuel at about three o'clock have tobogganed down to their spats in the mud whilst early in the morning one could bounce a crowbar on the frozen ground.
How did a piston engine tanker refuel a faster jet bomber? It "tobogganed" - the refueling connection would be made high up and then the bomber and tanker flew "downhill" together enabling the tanker to pick up more speed.
Related words: sleigh
bobsled
bobsleigh
luge
luge sled
skeleton sled
sled
sledge
Derived words: power toboggan
sleboggan
toboggan cap
toboggan down
tobogganeer
tobogganer
tobogganing
tobogganist
toboggan run
toboggan slide
Translations: