DCHP-1 Online

Mackinaw mackinaw [< Cdn F mackinac < Ojibwa; see 1761 quote]

• 1 n. a heavily napped and felted woollen cloth from which blankets and articles of clothing are made, nowadays usually of plaid design.

  See also: mackinaws  

  • 1761  (1901)  [The land, in the centre of this island, is high, and its form somewhat resembles that of a turtle's back. Mackinac, or Mickinac, signifies turtle, and michi(mishi), or missi, signifies great, as it does also several, or many. The common interpretation, of the word Michilimackinac is the Great Turtle.]
  • 1841  They have also a large assortment of Blankets . . . of the real Mackinaw, assorted from 2 to 3 points to suit the Indian trade.
  • 1896  Oh! Their Mackinaw garments are wooly and wet,/Their gunny-sack leggings are smelly, and yet/We admire them; not for their beauty you bet!
  • 1910  He was dressed in mackinaw, and wore a fur cap with drooping ear-flaps.
  • 1964  By 1934 William M., a third generation Humphrey, was operating the mill and producing a large red and black check design for Mackinaw or cruiser cloth. Three grades of Canadian wool, fine, medium and coarse, called "one-half," "three-eights" and "quarter blood" respectively, were used in its manufacture.

• 2 n. a blanket of Mackinaw (def. 1).

  See also: Mackinaw blanket (def. 2)  

  • 1854  "I soon toort o' a dodge, an' went back to camp for my blanket, which wur a red mackinaw."
  • 1909  We built our boats and we launched them. Never had been such a fleet ;/ A packing-case for a bottom, a mackinaw for a sheet.

• 3a n. Hist. a heavy, flat-bottomed freight boat. [See picture at York boat.]

  See also: Mackinaw boat (def. 1)  York boat  

  • 1891  In winter travellers are confined solely to the use of dogs, and in summer time to boats--York or inland boats of the style of the McKinnaw build.
  • 1908  The boats of the English traders from Hudson Bay were ponderously clumsy, almost as large as the Mackinaws.
  • 1915  The rather barge-like 'Mackinaw' . . . was a useful but humdrum cargo boat, laboriously poled along shallow, quiet waters, or rowed with lumbering sweeps; or sometimes even sailed, when it shovelled its way through the water with a very safe wind dead aft.
  • 1960  A mackinaw is a kind of bateau or flatboat used by traders.

• 3b n. Hist. a schooner-rigged boat formerly in use on the Great Lakes.

  See also: Mackinaw boat (def. 2)  

  • 1923  The journey was made in mackinaws,--open boats with a schooner rig, and the sugar was carried in mococks,--containers made of birch bark, each holding from twenty to thirty pounds.
  • 1958  That is why the fishermen of the old schooner and mackinaw days loved Tobermory.

• 4 n. a short belted coat made of Mackinaw (def. 1).

  See also: Mackinaw coat  

  • 1913  A mackinaw is a short, rough coat of material much like a grey horse blanket. It is worn by most lumberjacks, explorers, miners and woodsmen in the regions north of the great Canadian lakes.
  • 1965  I . . . put on a mackinaw and a fur cap and took a turn down to the RR track and back. . . .

• 5 n. (in euphemistic exclamations) See quotes.

  • 1927  "By the holy mackinaw, if we don't hit her, I ain't goin' to see that kid lose a cent, if I have to work my fingers to the bone to get it!"
  • 1954  Now, by the holy mackinaw, was the time to lay on that paddle as never before!