toboggan

noun

1. (error-lua-timeout)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.

   “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.”

2. (Canada, US, error-lua-timeout)A similar sled of wood, pulled by dogs, possibly with steel runners, made to transport cargo.

   “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.”

3. (error-lua-timeout, figuratively)Something which, once it starts going (figuratively) downhill, is unstoppable until it reaches the bottom.

   “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.”

4. (Southern-US, Virginia, West, error-lua-timeout)A knit cap, designed to provide warmth in cold weather.

   “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.”

verb

1. (error-lua-timeout)To slide down a hill on a toboggan or other object.

   “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.”

2. (error-lua-timeout, figuratively)To go downhill unstoppably until one reaches the bottom.

   “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.”

3. (error-lua-timeout, intransitive)To fly sharply downward so as to build up speed to facilitate in-flight refueling of a faster aircraft.

   “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.”