DCHP-1 Online

down East

• 1 in or to the Maritimes, especially Nova Scotia (particularly from the point of view of someone in Central Canada).

  See also: East (the) (def. 1)  

  • 1834  Now Nab is a real cute girl, and has got so much larnin . . . for her father sent her sicks weeks down east to bordin skool.
  • 1891  An enterprising down East Hustler lately conceived the idea of crowding the "Best Fifty Books" into one volume, and selling the same by subscription.
  • 1962  Nobody forces it [a family], though it's of course too bad if it can no longer make a livelihood Down East

• 2 in or to central Canada or the Maritimes, usually Ontario (from the point of view of persons in the West and Northwest).

  See also: back East (def. 1)  East (the) (def. 2)  

  • 1881  The weather we have experienced so far this winter has been as summer compared to that down east.
  • 1912  We gossiped of Captain Taylor's half-bred child, Wee James at school down East. . . .
  • 1962  The traditional style favored down east, the old draw game, had the curlers trying to place their stones "in the house"--somewhere inside a 12-foot circle at the other end of the ice sheet.